There was a wagon coming out of the fort’s main gate toward them now, noisily empty as it jounced over ruts. It was drawn slowly by some kind of sturdy-looking cattle that Margie could not have named. Ambrosius watched it approaching for a moment, then turned back to Artos. “I’ve arranged for a ride. I’m going to Londinium. No, it’s all settled. If I’m not here you won’t be worried about me, wasting your time trying to do something for me. I’ll be no worse off in Londinium than anywhere else.” It was as if Ambrosius, by some trick, or great effort of the will, was managing to hold himself momentarily sober.
Artos could find nothing to say.
The wagon pulled up at the roadside nearby, stopping with a final jolt into an old rut. The lone driver, in poor garments, looked very tired, Margie thought, and worried as well. Probably about having to drive all the way to Londinium, wherever that was, without an escort.
But the old man was not quite ready. He put out a tentative, unexpected hand and took his leader by the arm. “Before I go, will you show me the Sword?”
“Sword?” It took Artos a moment to understand. Then slowly he pulled the weapon from the sheath at his side and held it up, hilt down, point to the morning sky. It was a little fancier then the other handmade weapons Margie had seen during the last few days. Otherwise she could see nothing remarkable about it.
Ambrosius raised a gnarled finger, touching the half-polished steel. “Do you remember how it must be hidden? When the time comes?”
This time Artos paused a little longer. Then in a hardened voice he answered: “I remember.”
“Good; she doesn’t know about the Sword—not yet. If I were to see her again—she might find out. But I’m not going to see her again. She probably wouldn’t let me if I tried, and—”
The old man’s voice collapsed, and with it his sobriety. He clung to the young man for support, and Margie could see the tears squeeze from his eyes. He repeated: “A great s-stone, Artos… she’s put me under it for good. There’s no way out. No way.”
Artos abruptly turned fierce. “Don’t say that! In time, with all your powers, there surely must be something… tell me, what will it take? What materials will the counterspells require? I’ll get them. I’ll find other wizards who can help. It’s madness for us to give up like this. I’ll mortgage this land if need be, I’ll strip the kings who pay me of their wealth. I’ll tell them I cannot win without your help.”
Ambrosius groaned. In a voice of solemn doom, fallen almost to inaudibility, he said: “It may not be.”
“I’ll bring the new priests, with their nailed-up god, to pray for you.”
“No… it may not be.” Ambrosius paused, as if trying to recover himself again. He held one forefinger upraised, as if what he was about to say next would be of great importance. But then he said only: “There’s a street I know of in Londinium… it reaches all the way around the world. I think this is one alley to it, here.”
He lurched away from Artos to the side of the waiting wagon, then abruptly altered his course and made it, in a few staggering steps, to the wineseller’s counter. Margie saw a bright coin appear between gnarled fingers, in a hand she knew, with professional certainty, had been empty a moment earlier. The villainous-looking proprietor glanced nervously at Artos; the commander’s sword was sheathed again, and what the wineseller saw must have reassured him, for he took the coin and handed over a full wineskin. Ambrosius reeled under its modest wobbling weight back to the wagon. He hung on the side of the vehicle, staring into its flat bed, which was empty but for a few inconsequential bundles that doubtless held only the driver’s personal effects.
Then Ambrosius began to sing, loudly and drunkenly in a cracked voice: “Lon-din-i-um, Lon-din-i-um, I’m going to Lon-din-i-ummm.” Suddenly his countenance collapsed into a mask of grief. One word croaked from his lips.
The face of Artos had hardened into a mask of duty. He grabbed the old man around the waist, and, as if he were a bundle of freight, hoisted him with easy strength up over the wagon’s side and in. Then with a wave, as if throwing something from him that he did not want, he sent the wagon rumbling on its way.
TWENTY-SIX
“Gilles de Rais,” Simon echoed aloud the last words that Talisman had spoken. “Bluebeard. The one who murdered hundreds of children…” His voice trailed off. The echoes of old horror that hung in the air here were explained.
Talisman nodded. “He also performed many experiments in alchemy and magic, trying to recoup his squandered fortunes. If he had the Sword here, it would have been an irresistible temptation to profane it by trying its power in some such attempt. After that it was somehow hidden again. Perhaps here, perhaps elsewhere.”
“Not here,” said Simon, conscious of a sudden inward revelation.
Talisman stared at him, then startled Simon by spinning and moving two steps with utterly inhuman speed. The effort stopped there, as abruptly as it had started; whatever Talisman had had in mind, it was too late. Now Simon could see the ring of half-wraiths, demihuman shapes, surrounding the two of them at the distance of a pebble’s toss.
There might have been thirty or forty of them in all, and they were the color of the dissipating fog where they were not as thin as glass, and their faces were the faces of beings who had been for a long time in hell. Among their number were things like beasts, and other things more like men or women. Some crouched, some stood, and some held weapons. Some were clothed, some not, and the naked among them were not always those who looked the most like beasts.
The ring they formed was not quite closed, and the open side of it was along the rim of the bluff. Talisman turned to face in that direction, and in a moment Simon saw why. Directly below them, three figures were climbing the steep hillside. They were ascending straight toward Simon at a steady trudging pace. The central figure was a woman’s, and he saw as they came into clearer light that it was Nimue—the woman he had known as Vivian. She was still dressed in her red party gown. A couple of paces behind her, at her right, climbed Gregory, while Arnaud limped along in a similar position on her left.
Simon blinked, taking a closer look at Arnaud. The man had recently been hurt again, had suffered what seemed to be a minor bullet-wound in one leg. But Simon now could perceive a much more fundamental wrongness in him. One symbol of it was the brownish fur-stubble that had begun to sprout across his cheeks; it superficially resembled an ordinary beard, even as Arnaud had a surface resemblance to a human being. Under the surface there was a different kind of nature to be seen. Repelled and frightened, Simon looked away.
His eye fell on Gregory, who he saw was truly human. But his human nature had been altered drastically. And he had incorporated in his very self things that Simon could not name, but that stunned him with the feeling of evil that they projected. The base of true humanity only made the horror the greater.
With some half-formed idea of appealing for help or understanding, Simon turned to Talisman. He was surprised to observe in the man at his side something akin to Gregory’s altered nature, though with deep differences.
Simon had only an instant for each of these discoveries. The woman he had known as Vivian had almost finished her climb, and she was still climbing straight toward him. The long red dress molded to her thighs, as with perfect balance she stepped across a fallen log. When Simon looked deeply at her now, he saw… no, there was more than he could dare to see. He held his vision on the surface. Nimue’s expression was grave, and once her eyes had caught his they held them in a commanding stare.
She stopped a pace in front of Simon, on the very lip of the bluff. “Find it for me,” she ordered urgently, without preamble.