He beckoned, leading the bemused young knight out to look up at the string of boxcars going past.
Gilbert saw and went rigid. “A dragon!” His hand leaped to the sword that was no longer there.
“None of that.” Matt caught his hand and slapped the head of a walking stick into Gilbert’s hand. “We don’t use swords here. Saul said you knew how to use this.”
“Of course… I am a peasant’s son!”
“How’d you get to be a knight?” Matt frowned, then remembered. “Oh, that’s right… you’re in a religious order.” The Knights of St. Moncaire were like the Knights Templar, only nowhere nearly as rich… or corrupt.
“How can I fight that dragon with a stick?” Gilbert wailed.
“You won’t. It’s not a dragon.” Matt took a deep breath and tried to explain. “You can tell it’s just a string of wagons. See how they’re joined together?”
“Why, so they are!” Gilbert’s fear transmuted into awe. “But what huge wagons, and how fast they move! And so very many! What manner of beasts draw this train?”
“A magical monster,” Matt ad libbed. “We call it a ‘locomotive.’ Don’t worry, though, they’re all tame… well, almost all.”
“Is there no end to them?” Gilbert stared back along the tracks, where car after car was rounding the bend. “How wealthy your people must be, to build so many… and all with iron wheels!”
That jolted Matt. He’d never particularly thought of his civilization as being rich, but when Gilbert put it that way… “I suppose we are,” he said slowly, “at least in things people can make.”
“But not in their spirits?” The fire of religious zeal lit the eye of the martial monk. “We must bring the wealth of grace to their impoverished souls!”
“We have plenty of people trying to do that already.” But Matt felt a touch of guilt, remembering the shrinking number of Catholic priests and nuns. “What we need is some way to make the people listen to them.”
“Alas! That can never be done, my friend.” Gilbert’s face was almost lugubrious with sudden tragedy.
“None can force a soul to open itself to God. Indeed, none can open it save the soul itself.”
“And God,” Matt said softly.
“God can, but He will not,” Gilbert reminded him sadly. “He has given us free will, and will not take it away.”
“So that we’re free to send ourselves to Hell if we wish,” Matt said grimly. “Sometimes I wonder if it was God who gave that gift, or humanity who demanded it.”
“Sundering themselves from God by their arrogance?” Gilbert nodded. “I fear so, my friend.”
“Then let’s go find some prime examples of arrogance,” Matt said. “Out into the night of the city, Sir Gilbert.”
They climbed the steps to the station, Matt wondering what could have possessed Saul to saddle him with this great overgrown boy. Knighted or not, Gilbert was still an idealistic innocent who had only two values for evaluating experience… the wrong way, and his way.
Gilbert halted to stare at the station. “Who lives within? Some wealthy burgher?”
“Uh, no one, really,” Matt said, shamefaced. “It’s just a place for people to wait for the next train to come, the one that carries them to where they want to go.”
“So grand a place, merely for waiting?” Gilbert stared. “Wealthy your folk are indeed, Sir Matthew!”
Then he noticed the graffiti scrawled on the walls. “What amazing, glowing colors! But what do the words say?”
“Nothing important,” Matt said quickly. “Come on, we’ve got work waiting!”
He tried to hurry Gilbert around the corner, but the knight dug in his heels. “Nay! I must see what wondrous words are written in… ” He broke off, staring at the graffiti.
Matt held his breath and hoped that Gilbert wouldn’t have learned English, or how to read script, just by being transferred from universe to universe. But he’d made him read that Shakespeare verse in English again and again, under the Spider King’s magic, until it began to make sense to him…
“Those are most rude words.” Gilbert’s voice shook.
“I’m afraid so.” Suddenly, Matt felt ashamed for his whole culture. Defensively, he said, “But there are an awful lot of things here that are really good.” Matt wondered how he was ever going to manage with a medieval warrior from a religious order, a man who was both a monk and a knight, when he wandered down Main Street and saw what was going on after dark in a Newark suburb.
“I can see your paintings are most amazing.” Gilbert looked from one poster to another. “There is nothing religious in them, though… Ah! The word ‘Revival’… ” Then he saw what was being revived.
Matt’s stomach sank. The poster advertised a revival of Oh, Calcutta! and the picture featured some very artistic nudes.
Gilbert tore his eyes away, turning pale. “Would men and women truly pose for such paintings willingly?”
“They don’t see anything wrong in it.” Matt hoped he was right.
“Nor see any peril to their senses of who and what they are?” Gilbert shuddered. “How can your people be so rich in buildings and wagons while starving in their souls?”
“I met a man once who told me he could see no further than this world,” Matt said slowly.
“Why?” Gilbert cried, anguished, but Matt had no answer for him. Instead, he said, “Let’s do what we have to do, and quickly. We need to get back to Merovence.”
“Can we not stay to fight the Devil, and save this world?”
“Let’s save our own first.” Matt heard his own words, and felt a wrenching within him. He’d spoken truly; Merovence was his home now. He remembered the Uruguayan man down the street, who’d gone to visit his village after ten years in New Jersey, and come back saying that it wasn’t home anymore.
He led Gilbert out around the station and down the walk toward the side street that led to Main. Gilbert stopped, staring. “What manner of lamps are these?”
“Huh?” Matt followed his gaze. “Oh, just ordinary streetlights.”
“To spend so much fuel on lighting an empty street? Amazing!”
Matt thought of telling him that the lights didn’t burn oil, but thought of the smokestack at the powerhouse and bit his lip. “It helps keep people safe,” he said, “so it’s worth it. Come on.”
They walked on down the street, with Gilbert exclaiming softly. “So much pavement! Such huge blocks! So little sewage!”
And here Matt had been getting angry at the litterbugs. He remembered how downtown Bordestang looked at night… dark as an eight ball, stinking with open sewers. Maybe, when they got the genies under control, he ought to tell Alisande about streetlights, storm drains, and sanitation services.
They turned the corner onto Main Street, and Gilbert halted, staring in amazement. “How wondrous!”
“What?” Matt looked down the street, frowning. “Just because people are out late shopping?”
“It is as brightly lit as day! And those canopies, they might house an army!”
“Well, they are hoping that sheltering people from rain between stores might attract customers away from the shopping malls… “
“And all paved, all stone, even the buildings! Are they palaces? They must be, for they’re ablaze with light, and all of stone, as tall as a castle keep!”
Matt turned back, viewing the scene as it must appear to Gilbert, and was forced to admit he had overlooked some of the more amazing aspects of his own world. What made it worse was that this Main
Street was nothing special, as towns went.
“They’re just shops,” he said, feeling very lame.
“Shops! If these are shops, what are your churches like?” Gilbert turned on him, eager as a puppy. “Can we not find one, Sir Matthew?”