"I know when my birthday is, Sergeant," he said.
Her dark hard face turned to Rudi. "And you'll have this Sword you say is waiting for you on Nantucket?" she said skeptically.
"If I live, Rosita," the Mackenzie said gently. "Nothing's sure. .. except that there's no hope or luck to be found turning away from a task the Powers have laid on you."
"Frankly, I never really believed Ingolf here," she went on. "No offense! I know you believe it, Ingolf, but… well, a lot of stories come from the outlands. Creepy places with enchanted swords and extinct animals…"
"There's a passenger pigeon at Dun Juniper," Rudi said quietly. "Most of us here have seen it. That came from Nantucket."
"And the Prophet believes the story," Ingolf said. "He put Kuttner in when the Bossman hired me to go East, and Kuttner was his main secret agent in the household of Iowa's Bossman. And when I escaped from Corwin, he risked pissing off everyone on the West Coast by sending his Cutters after me. They near as damn-all did kill me; if Rudi and his friends hadn't been there that night…"
Rudi touched one hand to the livid bruises that Kuttner's dead hands had left on his throat, through the mail collar and padding.
"You were there," he said. "You saw this."
Gonzalez swallowed and looked away. "Yeah… Yeah, I was." She shuddered. "Hell, I saw a dead man keep fighting until we cut him to pieces. Christ. So maybe a magic sword isn't so loopy after all."
Ingolf nodded; he seemed to have cast off most of his chill, but he held out his big battered hands to the coals of the fire.
"It's there," he said flatly. "I saw a hell of a lot of things on Nantucket, and some of them may have been me going bugfuck, but the Sword is there. And the Voice, the voice that told me to go find the Son of the Bear Who Ruled and tell him about it."
Astonishingly, he grinned a little. "Didn't know what to expect. .. but you're not as furry as I thought you might be, Rudi."
The Mackenzie laughed at that, then stopped himself: it hurt too much.
"What'll you do, then, Fred?" he asked the General's son. "Take to the mountains? Go West? My mother would welcome you and give you sanctuary at Dun Juniper. You might find a few Mackenzie bowmen who'd come back with you in a while as well, to be sure."
"And the Lady Regent would make you welcome in Portland," Mathilda said. Her spine straightened. "And she'd give you gold, and knights and men-at-arms to follow you. My House owes you a blood-debt now, a debt of honor."
"Or you could go to Lord Alleyne and Lady Astrid in Mithrilwood," the twins said-their voices were so close together that they had an eerie overlaid quality.
Ritva went on alone: "Aunt Astrid would love it. An evil usurper to put down and an exiled prince to help! It's just the sort of thing Rangers are supposed to do."
"Stanon" Mary said, nodding: absolutely, in Sindarin.
"I'll come with you, if you'll have me," Frederick said quietly, looking at Rudi. "I've got a feeling that… it's real important you get where you're going."
He smiled, and his face looked young again, despite sweat-streaked dust and new lines worn by care and grief. "And back! Don't forget that!"
"Sir!" the cavalry sergeant said. Then: "Well, I suppose it'll be interesting…"
Frederick Thurston shook his head, just once. "No, Sergeant. You and the troops will stay here. You'll report to your units as if you'd gotten separated at Wendell and you'll keep your heads low until you know you're safe."
He held up a hand at her protest. "And you'll spread the truth.. . carefully. When I get back, I want things to be ready. Major Hanks will be in charge of setting up a… network, I think you'd call it. I doubt Martin, the new regime, will pay any attention to an engineering officer."
Gonzalez' mouth quirked a little. "He'll probably mothball that pedal-powered blimp Major Hanks loves, sir. And that'll make him even angrier than he is right now!"
Rudi thought quickly, and then held out his hand; Frederick's grip was hard and strong. He shook hands all around; it had the air of a solemn rite, somehow.
"Welcome to the quest," Rudi said. "I'll be glad of your help and company, Fred."
"And we're back up to nine," Ritva said; she and her sister nodded, solemn as owls. "It's canonical."
They both looked innocent when Mathilda glared at them, and one of them tipped Rudi a wink. He laughed himself, and rose to help Ignatius smother the fire.
"Your sisters may be wiser than they think," the priest said quietly as they worked. He went on at Rudi's raised eyebrow:
"I have been thinking of what this quest means," he said, with the scholarly precision he used for serious matters. "Have you noticed that you seem to be… collecting people? Of a particular type?"
Rudi chuckled. "Sure, and I so seem to have an attraction for disinherited princes," he said.
"That is because you are a hero, I think."
Rudi frowned at him. "Well, thank you-"
The priest shook his head. "No, I'm using the word in a… technical sense. I suspect, my son, that you are a hero in the sense that Sigurd or Beowulf or Roland was. Heroes accrete heroes around them-heroes, and great evils. I thought that was true only in ancient story, but apparently the archetype holds true in our lives as well."
"Ah," Rudi said softly. Was that a goose that just walked across my grave?
"Well, for my sake, I hope you're wrong, Father," he said. "I love the old stories, but sure and I'd rather listen to them than live them out."
"I too. Human beings live by their legends; but if what I suspect is true, then we are living in one." A wry smile. "But even Our Lord was refused when he asked that the cup pass from him."
"Something my mother said once… that my birth-father had walked into a myth without knowing it. I hadn't expected the same to happen to me." He shivered slightly. "Does it make it better or worse that I know?"
"Perhaps we should have expected it," Ignatius said soberly. "We children of the Change. It took the technology of our parents from us-but that is not all. Other things are… moving into the vacated spaces. It is as if time were moving backwards in some fundamental way."
"Back to the time of legends," Rudi said.
"Into the time of myths," Ignatius agreed.
"I wonder what will happen if we go too far back?" Rudi said.
Ignatius looked up at the stars. "We find God. Or God finds us."
It took Rudi minutes to cast off the mood the priest's words had laid on him.
But it's only so long a man can ponder on the deep things, he thought. Whatever shapes the Gods have in mind for him to wear, he's also just a man.
"Walk with me, Matti," he said. "Or rather, hobble by my side."
They walked out a little into the dark. He started to put his arm around her shoulders, and winced at the sharp stab of pain, then completed the motion.
"Sore?" she said sympathetically.
"From my face to my toes; and likely to be more so tomorrow."
Mathilda nodded. " I'm feeling like my own grandmother. You fought more, but I spent twenty hours tied up in a hauberk."
Rudi nodded. "I almost wish I had a real wound to distract me, so. But glad I am to have you back in good company, Matti, my anamchara; while you were gone I came to a better understanding of the great whacking hole your absence would leave in the scheme of things."
She looked up at him and smiled, but…
"Something troubling you?"
"It's not fair," she laughed.
"What?"
"You're perceptive too. Male obliviousness is supposed to be a woman's last defense."