Robert Charrette - Arthur 01 - A Prince Among Men

by Robert N. Charrette

  As if to alleviate John's fears, his host stepped up to the table, his own golden plate in hand, and heaped mounds of meat and vegetables onto it. He waited until John had selected enough from the table to feed the entire fencing team, then led him to a pair of ornately carved chairs with arms wide enough to set the plates upon. A jeweled golden goblet already sat on the right armrest of each chair. The knight seated himself, motioning John to do the same. Without benefit of eating utensils, the elf started in on his food. John was still a little uneasy as he selected his first morsel, the drumstick of some small bird. But the taste won him over at once, for it was smokily flavorful and the meat was cooked to a perfect blend of juiciness and tenderness. He started tucking away the rest of his selections like a football jock after the big game. Having devastated the contents of his plate, he laid it on the chair's arm and leaned back.

  "There is more if you wish it," the elf said.

  Burping embarrassingly, John said, "I think I've had more than enough."

  "Forgive my lack of decorum, young sir, but I find it most curious that you travel in disguise."

  "Disguise?" Sure, he wasn't wearing what he usually did, but— It dawned on John what the elf meant. "You can tell I'm an elf?"

  The elven knight took a sip of his wine and nodded. "Of course. Your disguise is built of such simple spells, and ones clearly designed to operate in the earthly realm, at that. But even there I would be able to see through them. Here in Faery, they are the merest flicker of light, a trivial hindrance to the rankest novice on the Way."

  "If they're so bad, what's the point? Why are they still working?"

  "Am I to understand that they are not your spells?" The knight actually sounded surprised.

  "A present from my father." Whom he didn't want to discuss. "You think I was a mage or something?"

  "That is ob—" The knight put down his goblet. "Is it you who wish to test me, or do you do so under the command of another?"

  The elf sounded offended. Which didn't make sense. As the visitor here, wasn't John the one who was supposed to be tested? And what was this "command of another" business? "I don't know what you're talking about."

  The elf seemed puzzled by John's response. "You speak sincerely. Could it be that you are truly ignorant?"

  John's anger flared with sudden heat; he'd never liked being called ignorant. He knew he didn't understand a lot about the otherworld. He couldn't help not knowing. It wasn't as though he'd grown up in Faery. This elven "better than thou" attitude was really starting to be prehistoric. "Yeah, I'm a real jerk. I don't know nothing. Okay?"

  Slamming his fist down on the chair's arm, he upset his plate. The knight stayed him from fumbling after it, with a light touch on his arm. Jaw set, John looked away, finding the corbel supporting one of the room beams utterly absorbing; it was a cold deep place he could pour his frustrations.

  "Let it go and calm yourself. I meant no offense." The elf waited until John had relaxed a little and released his death

  stare at the corbel before he spoke again. "I must admit to fault in myself; I was misled by how you found my keep. Now I think I begin to understand. I believe I would be correct to name you a changeling."

  "Yeah, so?" The anger hadn't all drained away. "You got a problem with that?"

  "It does explain certain things."

  "Maybe you'd like to explain these certain things to me."

  "Given the right circumstances, I would. But first, let us try something in the nature of an experiment."

  John didn't like the sound of that. "What have you got in mind?"

  "Nothing dangerous, I assure you. If you have not already learned it, our society is to a large degree based on merit and accomplishment. Here, little is accomplished without magic."

  "I told you, I'm not a mage."

  "Say rather that you have had no training."

  What? The last shards of anger popped and vanished. "Are you saying I am a mage?"

  "Mage is a word I would reserve for one who has considerable experience in the Way."

  "What's this 'Way' stuff?"

  "The Way is magic and magic is the Way. It is a path of art and craft and science by which one touches the staff of the universe and binds it to one's will."

  "I suppose it's got a light side and a dark side?"

  "That sounds like a quote," the elf said.

  "Maybe you should just tell me what you've got in mind."

  "Very well. Now is not the time for philosophy. Now is the time for a demonstration. You must believe before you can take your first step along the Way." He gestured, and the dozen candles of the candelabra between their chairs went out. "You will relight one of them."

  Right. "I haven't got a match."

  "Without a match."

  " You're gonna have a long wait, sir knight." "I think not. Your temperament would seem to indicate an affinity for fire." The knight reached out and touched the central candle with his finger. "Take a good look at this, then close your eyes."

  John closed his eyes and gave it a try.

  "Clear your mind of all but the image of the candle. See it white against the black. Do you see it?"

  He saw a candle, anyway. He wasn't sure that it was the one the knight had touched.

  "It is incomplete, isn't it? What is the point of a candle that gives off no light? Concentrate on the image. See it as it should be. See the flame. Feel the heat. Smell the burning wick, the hot wax. Know it." The knight's voice was compelling, but John was having trouble conjuring the image. He felt hands on his temples, rubbing, and tension eased from him. More relaxed, he found it easier to picture the flame.

  "See it as real," the knight coaxed.

  John saw the flame in his mind's eye. The heat, the light, the smell, even the tiny, tiny sound of it. It began to seem real.

  "Make it real."

  That was exactly what he wanted to do. He wished the reality of the flame. He wished it hard. Something gave, and he felt heat rushing through him.

  "By the Dark!" the knight exclaimed, shocking John out of his concentration.

  John opened his eyes and saw that all twelve candles burned.

  He'd done it. Not just one, but twelve little flames, all of his creation. It was wonderful. He'd called fire into being. If he could do this, what more was he capable of?

  "Show me more."

  The knight held up a cautionary finger. "Before we go further, I must know how you came to this realm. You did not make the crossing yourself, did you?"

  "No." What did this have to do with learning magic?

  "An elf came to you and helped you make the crossing."

  "Are you guessing, or do you know?" "It seems the most likely circumstance. Is it so?"

  "Yeah."

  "Did he tell you that he was your father?"

  "Yeah."

  "And do you believe him?"

  John started to answer, to say yes, but a sudden surge of caution urged him to be circumspect. "Don't see that it's any of your business."

  "You know very little of this realm." The knight turned his head slightly, to regard John from the comer of his eyes. With a gesture of his hand he conjured an image of Bennett. "Is this the elf who brought you to the realm?"

  So much for withholding information; the knight already knew. "Yeah. Calls himself Bennett."

  "Bennett," the elf said thoughtfully. "Very well, then, Bennett is what we shall call him."

  Meaning it's not his real name. "You know him?"

  "He and I are not of the same estate."

  "You didn't answer my question."

  "And you are very blunt and impolite, but I do not hold it against you. Doubtless you have had a deficient education."

  "I had a very good education," John protested.

  "Perhaps for the earthly realm. There is much you have to learn of your birthright, and of what is open to you because of your blood. Such things were closed to you in the other realm. They need not remain closed. For example, I can teach
you to touch the magic in your soul."

  Having had the taste of it, John wanted more. "Okay. I'm ready."

  "Swear to me as apprentice and I will. I can open your heritage to you. With my guidance, you can reach your true

  potential."

  John had always heard that an education wasn't free, but he'd never had to face the payments. "And what do I have to do for you?"

  "For me? No more than any apprentice. A good student is reward enough for the teacher."

  "There's a catch, isn't there? There's always a catch."

  The knight laughed lightly. "You have been listening to too many stories told by humans. They harbor a most unkind prejudice. Would you like to try another spell?"

  John nodded.

  "There is very little that an untrained mind can initiate, but by the strength you have shown, I judge that you might be able to hold a spell that another casts. Would you like to try that?"

  "What kind of spell?"

  "An imaging."

  "Okay."

  "Good. Close your eyes again, and think of someone you would like to see. Think of someone you know well. Someone for whom you have strong feelings. Your best friend, perhaps. I will draw the image from your mind."

  John thought of several people, but his thoughts kept flitting back to Faye. Whom else did he know so well?

  "Ah, there. I have it."

  The knight took John's right hand in both of his and turned it palm up. The elf s hands felt as though they were studded with a billion tiny needles.

  "Do you feel the energy?"

  How could he not? "Yeah," he whispered.

  "Let emotion guide you as I release the spell to you; the strength of your feelings will aid what we do."

  The knight took his hands away, but the prickly feeling remained.

  "Open your eyes and see what we have conjured," he said.

  John looked. Without a doubt it was Faye's image, but unlike the knight's earlier image of Bennett, this one was full figure. A tiny Faye stood stark naked on John's palm. John gaped at what his imagination had supplied. The image rippled and was gone as the magic fled his shattered concentration.

  But for all the embarrassment the image caused him, it had brought wonder and joy as well. He had done magic. It was like a dream come true, and he wanted to shout with delight.

  He was an elf, and he could do magic! The knight seemed pleased by John's foolish grin.

  "This is but the faintest shadow of what is yours by birthright. You have but to claim it."

  "How do I do that?"

  "First, you must put away all that you have known. Now is the time for you to think of your future. You must come to your life in this realm with open arms, forgetting your life in the earthly realm."

  Suddenly the dream seemed a little tarnished. "What about my friends?"

  "They must go on without you. You came here without them; you have shown that you do not need them anymore. Soon you will understand that you never needed them. Ephemeral humans can lay no claim to an elf."

  "Ephemeral?"

  "You will see them wither and die while you enjoy the eternal moment of your own nature. Forget them . Ultimately they can mean nothing to an elf. Put your hands between mine and swear."

  John looked at the narrow hands, the long tapering fingers. They were hands like his, fingers like his. Like the knight, he was an elf. Who better to teach Mm than another elf? But—

  "What about my mother?"

  "She is dead."

  "That's what he said. But I meant my earthy mother."

  "She is nothing."

  Something in John couldn't accept that. Sure, John was an elf; but he was John Reddy, too. He wasn't ready to abandon his past. "I don't think I ought to sign on with you just now."

  "You reject me?" the knight asked with a chill of winter in his voice.

  "I just don't think the time's right. Maybe we could work something out later."

  "You are a fool! Unworthy of my teaching." The knight sneered at him. "If you leave this place, you will never know true magic."

  John felt his own anger rise. "How do you kno—"

  Something flashed behind John's eyes, and for a moment he was blind. He panicked, flinging his arms up as though to ward off a blow. To his surprise, nothing came at him. Then he realized that he should have struck his goblet from the chair in his flailing. His sight cleared and he saw that he was no longer in the knight's hall. He sat alone on a rock in an empty field.

  Of the knight and his tower there was no sign.

  CHAPTER

  22

  Don't panic! Panic gets you dead.

  Holger listened again.

  Nothing. Try as he might, he could hear nothing and no one moving in the fog. The only noise, the soft rustle of cloth, came from Spae fidgeting annoyingly by his side. She was only willing to put up for so long with his demand for silence.

  "Well?" she demanded.

  "I don't hear any of them."

  "We already knew that."

  "Doctor, I think it would be wise to use a tether."

  "I know you don't like being a watchdog; I would have thought you'd have even less liking for a leash."

  "I am concerned for your safety, Doctor."

  "We should have waited for Bennett."

  "A moot point now. We should try to find some shelter before this chill saps our strength too far. Are you ready to start walking again?"

  "All right," she agreed grumpily. "But no tether."

  They set out again. Thie fog-bound world remained eerily quiet, the silence broken only by the sounds they made themselves. It was unnatural, disquieting, but strangely appropriate; the impenetrable fog made a fine metaphor for this magical place of nightmare. Fog was something you couldn't fight.

  Holger desperately wanted to be somewhere else.

  After an indeterminate period of time—he'd stopped relying on his chronometer when it told him it was noon while he could still see the moon in the star-filled night sky—they found a wall of stone. In the wall was a dark doorway offering access to some respite from the clammy mist. Holger flashed in a light and saw nothing extraordinary or dangerous, just a bare chamber where the fog was less dense. Another door across the room offered passage deeper into the structure. The curling tendrils of vapor that wafted in from the archway in which they stood did not seem to reach so far in. The room beyond might actually be free of the clinging mist.

  He crossed the chamber to check it out. The space through the second doorway was a corridor rather than a room, its length sufficient to swallow Holger's light without revealing anything of note, including its other end. Not wise to stop here without knowing what was at the other end.

  "We'd better give a look about before we rest, Doctor."

  "Expecting an ambush?"

  "I'm not expecting anything. I'm just being cautious."

  The corridor went on for some distance, far enough that the doorway through which they'd come disappeared into the gloom. It was quiet here too, but at least there were proper echoes.

  Still, there was something about this place.

  He craned his head around, looking for some clue as to why this place should feel familiar. He got his answer as he turned and saw Spae reaching for a meter-long, greenish crystal cylinder that sat on a half-meter plinth of bloodstone. He knew this place now. He'd seen that cylinder before, seen the dark shape embedded in it, seen hands reaching for it.

  Panic swelled in his throat, binding his limbs. It was almost too late. He fought it down, trying to warn her.

  "Freeze, Doctor. Don't—"

  It was too late.

  Spae's fingers touched the crystal and virulent green light bloomed around her, encompassing her as the crystal surrounded its dark heart. Like that heart, she was still as stone.

  Holger felt panic gnawing at his spine. Spae was frozen, as O'Connor had been. It was just like before, except it wasn't. He knew it couldn't be like before because Mannheim was dead, had been
dead for three years now. And the damned crystal was smashed. Thoroughly, utterly destroyed. He'd made sure of that. "Destruction of a unique treasure," the specialists had said. And they meant unique, not simply rare, of that they had assured him. "Deplorable," they'd said.

  But they hadn't been here—no! there—and the damned crystal shouldn't be here. But it was here. And Spae was trapped as thoroughly as O'Connor had been.

  His nerves felt jagged, rubbed raw with broken glass. Everything around him stood in stark relief, like video effects without adequate dimensional compensation. The light from the faceted crystal threw Spae's lean shadow against walls and floor in sharp-edged, multiple images of his inadequacy.

  But: one of those shadows was neither acute nor thin. Nor was it rigid. Hoiger's eyes tracked the motion as he calculated angles. Locating the apparent position of whatever cast the shadow, Holger turned toward it, machine pistol ready.

  There was something there. A presence of some sort.

  He almost tightened his finger on the trigger, but stopped himself. Whatever this was, it hadn't been there before. Maybe it could help Spae.

  "You are unusually perceptive, for a creature of the dirt," said a disembodied voice.

  No, not disembodied, for as his eyes adapted to the gloom away from Spae's glowing prison, Holger began to perceive a form. It was transparent as glass, its outline easier to see than any details; it was roughly man-sized and man-shaped, but it was no man, transparent or otherwise. Its shoulders were humped and its lupine head thrust forward from the mass where the hulking shoulders met the mass of its neck. It was furred, and he could not tell if it wore any clothes. Despite its speech, he could think of it only as a beast.

  Beast or not, the tint of green he perceived in the translucent creature matched that in the crystal, suggesting that it was somehow connected to Spae's entrapment.

  "Release her," Holger demanded.

  "You assume me capable of things beyond my power," the beast said. "For this moment, she must remain as she is."

  Holger raised the Viper to his shoulder and snapped on the laser sight. The red targeting dot appeared on the wall behind the beast, but he put that from his mind and aimed as best he could. "I said, let her go."