The Knight and the Rift Maiden

by Drake Dalton

  "People don't believe in magic, but they should," I continued, telling a story to help her calm down. "To children, everything is possible. They're full of wide-eyed wonder, and why not? Everything is fresh in their eyes. There are no limits because every day brings something new. But adults are overly fond of no. After enough scolding, even the most wide-eyed child learns to set aside his wonders and knuckles under.

  "Take me, for example. When I was a child, I could point north. Did I ever tell you? When people asked, I would point to the sky to what we now call the north pole. I was ridiculed for saying that I felt where it was. Eventually, I forgot how, but why was it so surprising that I could? Birds do the same thing when they migrate. Why is it so hard to believe that we can do with our huge brains what birds can do with their tiny ones?"

  "That's not magic," she said, interrupting me.

  She was relaxing—a good sign.

  "Actually, it is," I told her.

  "No, it's not."

  "Well, it's not pointy hats and magic wands, but it is magic, just the same. A man named Tesla once believed that energy could be transmitted through the air. He even built a model that actually worked. In truth, though, massive amounts of energy already flow through the air. The Earth is just a generator, after all, with a north and south pole, a metallic core, and a heavy spin. When we feel the magnetic pole, we interact with it. When we interact with something, we can learn to manipulate it. Energy manipulation is the basis for magic."

  "Nice use of the transitive theory. It's horseshit."

  I chuckled, which got a smile.

  It was a good smile.

  "That's the lawyer in you talking, not the kid."

  "You make that sound like a sin."

  "No, I'm just pointing out that lawyers believe in laws and rules."

  "Of course," she said. "Without laws and rules, there is no order, no society. There's only the jungle. Laws and rules are why our ancestors made it out of the trees."

  "Ah, but what if the rules you know aren't the ones that took us from those trees? What if, back then, they were different? What if they were changed after the fact and critical ones—like, perhaps, the ones dealing with some of the stranger ways the world works—were forgotten?"

  "I don't follow," she admitted, finally starting to sound more like herself.

  "Before reading was common, priests remembered our history for us. They remembered our science, too. They explained things to us. Much of that came from the Bible, but the first one wasn't completed until 400 AD—"

  "CE," she said almost absently.

  "What?"

  "We no longer use Anno Domini. It's Current Era or Common Era."

  "So, it's controversial, is it?"

  "No, it got a lot of traction over the last decade."

  "You just said it's one or the other, but you didn't know which. That is controversy, but that's not the point. The point is that from a certain perspective, it took four centuries to write it all down. Twelve hundred years later, there were so many versions of the story that King James threw fifty clerics into a room and said no one was coming out until he had one Bible accepted by all. A decade later, his committee finally ratified a version they all liked. You've worked with committees. Do you suppose any controversial bits were left behind?"

  "That's not the way committees work."

  "It's not?" I asked, pretending to be shocked.

  "No, it's not. Committees are thorough. I'm sure they came up with a good copy."

  "Okay, counselor, if that's the case, please explain what happened in the 1880's."

  "About ten years of stuff," she snorted. "Can you be more specific?"

  "Okay, why the need for an English Revised Version or an American Standard Version of the Bible? Three hundred years after the issue was finally settled—after we had the complete Word—fifty different clerics were thrown into another room and told to try again. King James had 80 books. This time the committee settled on 66, leaving 14 known books on the floor. They made thousands of other changes, too, some say 30,000 changes to the New Testament alone. All were made centuries after the fact. As a man of my word, I simply don't understand how The Word can keep changing. What new facts justified that massive edit—or was the edit simply to get rid of the older baggage that no longer fit the faith, as it would certainly appear?"

  She was getting angry.

  I felt the heat coming to her cheeks.

  That was good—I wanted her angry, rather than scared. Religion and politics were the subjects that never failed to end in arguments. Since I didn't believe in politics, I made do with religion—and the purity of the Bible remained the biggest bull's-eye in the field of theology.

  I pressed in, going for the kill.

  "How confident are you that the controversial bits—like energy manipulation that comes from natural sources, rather than Satan—weren't deemed too confusing to the flock and relegated to the cutting room floor? How confident are you, counselor, that you have the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?"

  "Whether or not I have that truth is irrelevant," she said, placing a hand on my chest and pushing herself up so she could look me in the eyes, "because we're not talking about the Bible. I can see through misdirection. It's a legal strategy used when the opposition is too close to the mark. Before you started to rant and rave, I asked what that thing was and what it wanted. You clearly have a theory. Skip the bullshit. Start talking."

  "Fine with me," I told her in a matter-of-fact manner. "Someone manipulated the energies of this Earth to form that mystic zephyr, then sent it on a dimensional fishing expedition to our world. We were caught in its net. It's a finely tuned spell that only affects those it's targeted to find, which is why none of our stuff went flying in the hallway, and why no one aside from us noticed it back home. Once it's locked onto a target, it succeeds or fails, but it never lets go."

  "Is something like that even possible?"

  "Not according to the church... the current church, that is."

  "I asked for the facts. Science is no longer constrained by the thinking of the church," she reminded me. "Frankly, I have no idea what the church believes, nor do I care."

  "Really? Science is not influenced by the church? Those budding young scholars never went to Sunday school? They never heard the stories? They have no built-in bias about whether magic exists, or if it must be satanic, if it does? They've no opinion about Inquisitions or witch hunts or anything else from history class? Who wrote that history? Impartial scholars? No, it was recorded, passed down and re-written—ad nauseam—by shitloads of bitter old men. I'm giving you the facts—true facts—or are you saying that you still can't see how the unexplored science that I've described could possibly be crucified by committees of insecure old men?"

  My voice had been climbing.

  I stopped myself, forcing the heat from my words.

  I hadn't intended to get so worked up. I would clearly need a different subject in the future for my misdirections, since this one obviously remained a sore subject.

  In hindsight, that should have been expected. I'd once been full of myself, too. Centuries before those upstart committees were born, my fanatic convictions had put thousands to the sword, quite literally, in the name of my God and deemed it just. I was the most worthy, after all. He'd granted to me the honor of finding the Holy Grail. How could the actions of His most worthy be anything but just?

  I was such a fool.

  All that reflection while sitting in the snow after the Crusade led me to a different truth... another path... a daunting penance. Not even my cousin had blundered as badly as I. Lancelot only failed his King. My failings only began with my King. But I would not fail Him again. I would never fail so completely again. I would protect this world and all others from the ravages of censure and fanatical convictions—regardless of their name—and I'd do so until He, in His most infinite mercy, acknowledged my hideous debt satisfied and allowed me to rest in peace...

 
; Presuming, of course, that a worm such as I deserved a lasting peace.

  But whether or not I deserved peace, I had to admit that it had been nice to again hold a Lady in my arms, even if her eyes began to narrow as she worked her way to a nasty conclusion without any help.

  "We never met before this morning," she said.

  It wasn't a question.

  "I would have remembered such a meeting," I replied truthfully.

  "There are two of us, but only a single zephyr."

  "Your point?" I asked.

  "You said it came for us, but how is that possible if mere chance brought us together?" That wasn't a question, either. She already knew the truth. "Are you truly a man of your word? If so, I ask you, Mister Masters... did that thing come for us, or did it come for just me?"

  #

  I considered moving our camp after the zephyr attack. It would have been smart under other circumstances, but a zephyr didn't care where a person had been in the past. It didn't rely on such clues to hunt. A zephyr would sniff out the location of the one who'd been programmed into the spell using its own devices. Moving the camp would never throw it off our trail, but it would expose us to the dogs and whatever other nastiness prowled the streets. Based on the interval between the two encounters, it would be dawn before the wizard who summoned the thing would have enough power to try again. That being the case, we'd be fine... I hoped.

  "Wake me in a couple hours," I reminded her, "or sooner, if something happens."

  I stretched out on the mattress and resumed my sleeping position. Julie once again sat in the hall—clubs beside her—but this time she sat next to me on my side of the fire.

  Dropping off to sleep, I was soon swept up in dreams of the past—shades that no doubt haunted me from my earlier thoughts. Old comrades, old enemies, all rode in tarnished armor on the backs of dejected steeds with heads held low as they plodded along a narrow, muddy road through the unending mist. Speed of Horse—my King's command for a heavy cavalry charge—took on new and unflattering meanings with these old nags, but the vacant expressions in the never-ending parade of long-dead knights was equally depressing.

  But then...

  My saddle stuck to my breeches, rocking me forward. My horse lurched. I jostled sideways, instinctively tightening my thighs to regain my balance and pushing on my stirrups to regain my seat—but the saddle held tight. I couldn't move, couldn't escape the tingling sensation that swept up through a delicate part of my anatomy, followed quickly by a second exquisite stir, then a third.

  I gasped, unable to control my breathing.

  A sharp pain this time, rocking me forward—

  And popping my eyes open.

  A loud gasp ripped my throat and rang my ears as I looked down through the dim firelight to find a pile of curly red hair where it definitely did not belong.

  "What are you—hey!" I cried.

  Scooting back on the mattress, I banged into the wall, but the nine inches of separation that I'd managed were quickly swallowed by the enthusiastic redhead, who barely paused in her work as she pushed forward. Betrayed by my hateful body, I reacted fully. It had been far too long for anything else. Legs aquiver, I reached out, my hand freezing in those blissful tangles.

  "Gaa! Lady! Please! I beseech thee. Desist in thine undertaking!"

  She lifted her head, but dropped a hand to continue her distraction while pinning me up against the wall. Shifting forward on her knees, she revealed that her jacket was fully unzipped, with the front hook of that lacy black accoutrement thoroughly defeated.

  She'd sprung loose, full and free, with everyone having a grand time.

  My eyes popped again while she smiled—a cat toying with a canary.

  If this was the way He chose to call me home, so be it. My beating heart rocked my chest and blood throbbed in my ears. I couldn't breathe. I could barely see. My vision closed down to tunnel in on that magnificent sight. The only thing saving me from a complete cardiac meltdown and an untimely retirement was the simple fact that the 1970's were long gone and the sheer, see-thru fashion of that era had been mercifully lost to history. Today's undergarments carried more material than any bikini on the planet and about as much sex appeal as a frilly pair of bloomers.

  I concentrated on that material—focusing on black lace and the only safe harbor around, since there was too much action everywhere around it, and since looking into those green eyes only brought rapid palpitations and a disturbing fire to the depths of a normally stoic heart.

  "What's wrong?" she asked. A mischievous smile lit her face and her eyes smoldered. "You said to wake you up. You didn't say how. What do you think of my solution?"

  Solution, hell!

  Any more solution and I'd die anyway—the good Lord willing, or not!

  "No," I managed to squeak, but that was all I could manage. With my hands still frozen—one in her hair and the other clawing the mattress—I could do nothing to push her away.

  I was one wretched piece of work.

  It was my own fault.

  I should have expected some kind of reaction.

  The last attack had once again pulled the rug out from beneath her. I'd gone to sleep while her mind raced, but now she knew that I was not the target. If this wasn't just some strange way to let off steam, it was a desperate bid to spark an emotional attachment in the one guy who knew what was going on—a guy who might decide that she was too much trouble, since he was not the target, and skip out while she slept. Attorneys were famous for rolling up their sleeves and doing whatever it took to get the job done, after all—even if the job that she was currently undertaking was nothing that I could have foreseen.

  I'd failed her, too.

  So much failure.

  I deserved a life alone.

  "Lady... please!"

  "Please?" she asked, ramping up her efforts—which brought a new level of indescribable agonies. "You don't have to beg. I'm happy to help. Hear me? I'm happy. To. Help."

  But something was wrong. I'd said something wrong, done something wrong. Her eyes were hardening. Her last words came out through clenched teeth—not that I could see. With tears streaming down my face, what little vision I had was a sorry blur.

  She didn't understand.

  I didn't hate her—I could never hate her.

  I had nothing but contempt for myself.

  Misery exploded though the hallway as she growled out in frustration. Turning her head in what I could only presume to be complete disgust, she got to her feet and stiffly retreated to her side of the fire while I rolled my back to her and completely fell apart.

  By the time I regained any degree of composure, she was stretched out beneath a blanket on her own mattress and fast asleep—or doing a good job of pretending. Tucking the corners beneath her feet, I rested my hand briefly on the blanket.

  "Back in a minute," I promised quietly. "And, yes, despite how it might seem, I am a man of my word."

  Even with my feeble senses, her energy blazed at my back as I moved silently down that slate hallway toward the southern door. Merlin would have shielded his eyes from that glare. I couldn't believe that I'd ever mistaken her for an Ice Queen. A fire cat, perhaps, but not an Ice Queen. Dimensionally perfect, with a spirit to match...

  I shook my head.

  It would have been better if we'd never met.

  Her vision would haunt my dreams for centuries to come, but perhaps the Lord had chosen to make that a part of my penance, as well.

  The moon was nearly full and already quite high when I stepped onto the stairwell landing outside. Its silver reflection glittered on the bay and tossed the world around me into a vivid black-and-white reality. Light that was nearly as bright as the noontime sun flooded this version of the Embarcadero and lit up the west sides of the squat apartment buildings to the south, while the ends nearest me were lost to shadows of infinite darkness. The calm, salty air and the silence of an empty city only added to a surreal moment that my overloaded mind refused to b
elieve.

  It was beautiful, breathtaking...

  And ultimately, disappointing.

  The full moon was still a day away. I couldn't return Julie to her home tonight. She would remain by my side—taunting me with her beauty—for another heartbreaking day.

  Taking a deep breath, I gathered my resolve. Filling my lungs with that crisp air, I purged the despair from my mind. My King would be ashamed. My cousin, for all his understanding, would nevertheless strike me down for succumbing to his own failing. There was no room for a weak heart. I had a maiden to protect. It was best, perhaps, to once again think of her as a cardboard construct... though, in truth, that ship may have already sailed.

  For her sake, however, I could try.

  Finding a neutral smile, I planted it on my face.

  I turned to resume the watch—

  And felt the zephyr for the first time.

  It was already behind me!

  I bolted for the door, but I was too late. I felt the tightly-spiraled energy of the vortex beyond that door merge with the blazing light from the bundle of energy that I'd tucked to bed just a moment before. They vanished as my fingers reached the knob.

  I threw open the door.

  The hall was empty.

  She was gone.

  #

  Someone had made a fatal mistake.

  It wasn't their fault, perhaps. They didn't live on my planet. They didn't know the rules. They did not realize that distressing a damsel under my protection was a flat-assed iron gauntlet thrown straight to the teeth, but ignorance of the law was no excuse for breaking it.

  The cold fires of a dreadful rage began to burn.

  For the first time in centuries, I rode to war!

  #

  Fortunately... I didn't have a horse.

  By the time I stormed to the edge of town, the crisp night air calmed my mind.

  Okay, I'd still enjoy trampling the bastard who'd summoned that zephyr beneath my hooves until not even the crows could make a satisfying meal of his remains, but with that option off the table, I had time for other thoughts... other plans... other actions...