Van Dam found Pendrake in the corridors immediately outside the congressional chamber only minutes after Pendrake’s speech. Pendrake was staring out the doors at where Virginia militiamen were disarming federal troops; and the sunlight streamed through the great doors and reflected off the marble floors to either side of him.
Van Dam walked up beside him, smiling a sort of pleading smile, and he sidled up to the edge of the door, so that he was out of the sunlight and could not be seen from outside.
“Mr. Pendrake! You can’t leave yet. There are members of the press waiting …”
Pendrake turned his head, his eyes narrowed in puzzlement. Pendrake could see that Van Dam was terribly afraid; it was not clear what he feared.
Just a moment ago, Van Dam had faced armed men and defied his superior officers without flinching. Just an hour ago, he had been aboard an aircraft carrier fighting the fallen angels of Acheron. He had not shown fear then. What did he fear now?
Pendrake asked, “Tell me what you want from me.”
Van Dam spoke in a careful tone of voice, “We want to help you. We can make certain you win the next election. After that speech, we can sell you to the American public …”
“What is it you want?”
“To help you!”
Pendrake gave him a skeptical look, and started to turn away. “Wait!” said Van Dam. “We need you! I admit we need you—to lead the country!”
Pendrake looked back. Surprise was on his features. “But why in the world should I want to?”
Van Dam said, “I’m offering you power! Absolute, unstoppable power! If you don’t want an elected position, if you don’t want to be in the public eye, we can get you an appointed position. Appointees don’t answer to anyone except to the administration, which we control. I’ve seen your charisma; this country is going to go through a long and hard period to recover from this disaster. The people need strong leadership for that period. Not many men could lead us through. Maybe only one—you.”
Pendrake drew his magic sword and held it up. “Let me explain the nature of power. Look at the wording on this blade. What does it say on this side?”
“Uh … it says ‘Take me up.’ That’s what I’m asking you to do, Mr. Pendrake. No matter who you run against, we can have the IRS investigate their tax returns near election time …”
Pendrake turned the blade over. “And on the other side?”
Van Dam stared at the letters, but did not answer.
The words said, CAST ME AWAY.
Pendrake said, “When I was in the dream universe, a spirit who looked like George Washington came and asked me if I knew who Cincinnatus was.”
Pendrake looked at Van Dam. Van Dam said, “I don’t know who that was.”
“You should read your classics. Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus was working on his small farm when the Roman Senate came and made him dictator, because their consular army had been surrounded by the enemy on Mount Algidus. He was given absolute power over one of the most powerful city-states, at that time, in the world. He led the Roman armies to victory in a single day, and then he retired back to his small farm. Not many people in history give up being dictator.
“In any case, the spirit of Washington asked me, and I said, yes, I knew who Cincinnatus was. I think he is you, sir, I said.
“He said, they wanted to make me king, some of them, did you know that?
“I said that I had studied history, yes. There had never been a form of government ever before in the world like our Constitution; and I had heard that some people were frightened, and preferred the old ways, the ways they knew. And I asked him, when they came to make you king, why didn’t you take it? The Continental Army was loyal to you.
“He had sort of a hard-bitten smile, and he stood with his hands clasped behind him. He just looked at me for time, and said nothing.
“Then he said, ‘Ben told me that an old woman found him outside of Independence Hall the day Congress voted ratification of the Constitution. She asked him, What’s it to be then, a monarchy or a republic? And Ben replied (of course, old Ben would not have told me the story if it did not contain one of his little witticisms) a Republic, madame, if you can keep it!’”
Pendrake could see the blank look of incomprehension in Van Dam’s eyes.
Pendrake said. “Let me use an example. My first act if you made me president would be to put the nation back on the gold standard and shut down the Federal Reserve system.”
“That would not be fiscally sound, Mr. Pendrake. The government needs to be able to inflate the currency to pay for its programs! Inflation allows us to destroy our public debts. Money is power, we need to control the money supply in order to control the economy.”
“We cannot let free men control their own money supply? My second act would be to repeal the Sixteenth Amendment, eliminate personal income tax, and declare April Fifteenth a national holiday.”
“That would weaken the national government considerably.”
“That’s my point.”
Van Dam said softly, “We must have a leader, a figure who can hold the country together for the duration of the emergency.”
“A figurehead, do you mean? I will not serve in that capacity. And, forgive me, what emergency? That just ended.”
“Our financial system was destroyed during the war, Mr. Pendrake! Communication networks down, the federal government halted, certain areas up in arms against us. The services of the government cannot be resumed immediately, and the international monetary fund …”
“The emergency will end once the federal government returns to its constitutionally permitted business. The state and local authorities can handle local disturbances.”
“No. We need central control. Martial law must be enforced until things are put back in order. Someone who understands the new state of things—someone who has the magic on his side—must lead us. One man.”
“Colonel Van Dam, you have missed the whole point of what’s happened, haven’t you? A warlock from our past, from the age of monarchy, slew the man he thought was our monarch, and he killed and replaced what he took to be his ministers and barons, our Congress, with his creatures. Yet, somehow, this country did not fall. And why is that?”
“Now you are being ridiculous, Mr. Pendrake! I am offering you power, power over your fellow men, and all you are talking about is how to dissolve and abolish that power. It was not the common people who saved this country, it was a hero. You, yourself, acting alone. The citizens had nothing to do with it … . Without strong leadership now, we will have anarchy …”
Pendrake now understood what Van Dam feared.
He smiled a cold smile. “So that is it. Azrael actually convinced you, did he? A dead doctrine, long ago forgotten, that one man can be anointed by supernatural mumbo jumbo to rule his ordained subjects. He told you that some men are born with spurs on their heels, and others born with saddles on their backs. Azrael told you Heaven appointed me to lead, didn’t he?”
“You’ve
been
leading. All I ask is that you continue. It’s your duty. The common citizens are not able to govern themselves, not able to save this country, not able to drive back archangels. No one else has a magic sword … .”
Pendrake threw back his head and laughed. “Am I not a citizen? Am I not a common man, of rank no higher than any other? I will ask you what I was asked: ‘What’s it to be, then? A monarchy or a republic?’ I’ve already made my choice, Colonel Van Dam; and I am not tempted at all by yours. As for you, you should turn yourself in before the investigators come to arrest you for your part in this. The court may be lenient.”
Van Dam, sullen, slunk back into the shadows. Pendrake, head erect, footstep firm, walked out into the sunlight, out into the wreckage of the streets. And, everywhere he looked, he saw the opportunity to rebuild.
Wendy had a mischievous smile on her lips, and she tugged on Raven’s hand. “Come on! Come on! I’ve always wanted to do this!”
“Really, should not be here, in this building, I think … ,” said Raven, frowning, looking up and down the corridors.
“Oh, come on! No one is around, or almost no one.” Wendy laughed. Even as she said that, a man came out a door down the corridor, saw them, turned and fled. Wendy waved the Moly Wand toward him; he became a seal, and fell. Raven and Wendy stepped over the seal, and kept walking.
Wendy said, “Haven’t you ever been here, like on a tour or something?”
“No,” said Raven, looking around.
“Besides! Don’t get nervous! Otherwise the Storm-Princes will get loose! Here we are!”
Raven opened the door. “It looks lot bigger on TV. So this is the Oval Office, eh?”
Wendy climbed over the Presidential desk. On her hands and knees, she looked back over her shoulder at Raven, smiled languidly, and waggled her hips back and forth. “Hello there, handsome husband. How many people can say they did this?”
“Did what?”
Wendy collapsed into the President’s chair, giggled, and started unbuttoning her blouse.
“Wendy! What are you doing?” Raven moved past the desk, trying to get to the sunlit windows to close the blinds; but as he passed near the chair, Wendy’s skirt was kicked up into the air and fell over Raven’s head. During the confused moment while he was blinded, Raven found himself tackled by his wife, and pushed backward into the President’s chair.
When he threw the skirts aside in a flutter of cotton flowers, he found Wendy, naked as a jaybird, sitting in his lap, legs crossed, toes pointed, arching her back, and running her fingers through her long, black hair. She was smiling, and her eyes were hidden beneath her lashes.
She looked up in mock surprise, and gave a little squeal, drawing her tresses before her breasts. “Oh, Mr. President Raven, sir! I didn’t see you there! Please don’t tell anyone! I’ll do …” and her voice dropped to a throbbing, husky whisper, “ …
anything
… !” She batted her eyelashes at him.
Raven reached out and took her naked shoulders in his strong hands. She laughed happily and writhed in his grip. Then she looked up suddenly, “What’s wrong? Why haven’t you ravished me yet?”
He said, “I am worried about Storm-Princes. What if, you know, during moments of passion, they are getting loose? What if I must be like a monk from now on, eh? This worries me.”
Wendy said, “I’ve got a plan! A great plan!”
Raven said, “What is this plan?”
She leaned forward, caressing her fingertips along his beard and the corded muscles in his neck, pressing her rounded body up against his, and she nibbled on his ear, whispering, “Well, stop worrying, silly boy!”
Raven looked philosophical for a moment, frowning and nodding in thought. Then, grasping his nude wife in one hand, he leaned forward and roughly brushed off the deck with the other. Red and white phones, historically significant pen-sets, important documents, bills awaiting signature, and treaties with foreign nations were swept to the floor. He pushed his wife back onto the green blotter, and, while she squealed and struggled enthusiastically, he had his way with her.
Later, they sat naked in the Presidential chair, her on his lap, with his voluminous cape wrapped around them, looking out at the rain. She said, “Let’s see if we can do this while floating!”
And she began to lift up a little ways into the air.
“Eh, darling, what are we doing if someone walks in?”
“I don’t know. Charge admission? Here; hold on!” They kissed.
Raven said, “Mm. Did I tell you that I love you, my little bird, eh?”
“I love you, too. And you know what else?”
“Mm? What else?”
“I love it that there will be fairy-tales running loose in the world again! Things are just going to be so weird from now on! It’ll be great!”
Galen Waylock had taken a nap, and when he woke, he found himself garbed in a robe of white samite, with a garland of bay leaves on his head. He looked up at his grandfather, who sat nearby, staring into the bowel of the Chalice.
The unicorn horn stood, point in earth, upright between them.
It was dusk, and Galen’s bow was beginning to glow more brightly against the darkening background.
To their left and right were the scattered ruins of Everness, rain-drenched tapestries and paintings beaten into the dirt, fragments of marble statues, broken faces and arms strewn across warped and shattered floorboards. Some rooms in the north and south wings were still standing.
In between the walls had been toppled, and burning footprints, larger than any footprint of man or titan, had smashed, smoldering, through the center of the tower, breaking it and scattering the stones. A path of devastation led to the broken seawall. The statue of the winged horse, which once had been atop the central tower, was lost.
Lemuel asked, “What did they say?”
Galen sighed. “The gods who dwell on Kadath will not aid us to rebuild; they wish never to become involved in any wars on either side, either of Mommur or of Acheron. But they treated me with grace, and gave me this robe to wear.” He sighed again and plucked the bay-leaf crown from his head, and held it, staring down. Then he said, “There are no powers to aid us. Can we reestablish the wards merely with human effort, and with the magic at our command, Grandfather?”
“We shall see. Do you remember the central tower?”
“It’s the first thing I memorized, Grandfather. Earth moon, heavenly moon, fiery moon, weeping moon.”
“And all the details of the scrollwork in the door-frames? The signs on the scales of the white-and-scarlet dragons intertwined about the foundation?”
“Four gates for the seasons, twelve arches for the hours of daylight; three hundred and sixty-five bricks, each named after a saint on the calendar of saints. Of course I remember the towers. What are we going to do about the books?”
Lemuel smiled. “I had a long time, and I was very bored, when I was fifty. You probably don’t remember when I had that photographer come in. He took pictures of everything. Everything. Originally I meant it to show that I hadn’t moved anything, in case the Royal Historical Trust ever questioned me. I also had the books microfilmed. It will take some time to have those records shipped here from England.” And his smile was good to see. More briskly, he said, “But for now. We have to create the tower tonight. Men die without their dreams.”
Galen lay down in the grass.
“There was one other thing, Grandfather …”
“Yes?”
“The dream-colts wouldn’t come when I called.” He spoke in a quiet, sad, small voice.
“Well. Things change,” said Lemuel. But he was thinking of when he had seen his first dream-colt as a child.
“I just wish …”
“Yes, Galen?”
“I just wish Dad was here.”
“Well. He’ll come around.”
“How come he got so upset when I shot him?”
“Well. He and I had an argument about that once.”
“Grandpa? How come it didn’t work? What’s wrong with his legs?”
Lemuel said, “Go to sleep now, Grandson. Remember the tower.”
Galen shut his eyes, and said, “Morpheus, escort me to your wide kingdom …” And he was asleep before he finished the sentence.
Carefully, Lemuel poured some of the living energy from the Chalice of Hope into the mouth of the unicorn horn; and a drop of living light soaked from the buried tip into the earth of Everness. “I know what is past shall live again in time … ,” he whispered.
A part of the twilight sunset came down out of the sky, the color of deep purple clouds, and became a tall figure robed in dusk and shadow. His crown was two black swan wings, a star of light burned within the diamonds of the necklace he wore, the toes of his boots did not quite brush the grass tips. In his hand floated a slender wand of heavy gold. His right eye was covered by a patch; his left eye burned gray and clear.
He cast no shadow.
Behind him, her silky white coat shimmering with captured glints of lambent light, stepping with fawnlike step, more graceful than grace herself, came the Unicorn, mother of the dream-colts. A pleasant scent came from her, like springtime grass. She looked at Lemuel with lavender eyes, so that he forgot who he was for the moment.
A timeless time passed while Lemuel stared.
Eventually he spoke, “Oberon, I offer you the guest-courtesy which is your foremost law, neither to strike nor slander nor carry away; nor, as my guest, can you do anything to work my harm or discomfort, nor overstay your welcome. The Earth has witnessed my words.”
“I accept the invitation,” came the solemn, kingly voice, “Nor have I given you cause to fear me, dear Bedevere.”
“Why these long generations of deception, sky-father?”
“‘Deception’?”
“I was taught you gave the Key to us, to keep in trust; in fact, Merlin stole it, corrupted your champion, and founded a kingdom on Earth of peace and justice. In fact, you need us to wield the Key. I saw what happened to you when Azrael directed it at you.”
“Where is the deception in any of this? Merlin would not have valued any freely given gift; he is a scavenger-bird, and will only treasure what he steals. Does it offend you that I need your house to serve me? Dreams need the hands of men to make them real, even as kings need patient and faithful knights to make their kingdoms. Kingdoms fall when dreams die; Lancelot proved that. Anton Pendrake, even now, seeks to restore the dreams of this land. Are you offended that your ancestors were ordered never to use that Key? Truly, truly, I tell you, there are deep, dread powers who walk the nightmare-world, and men are not wise enough to traffic with them. Your race could not even banish war when war was no more than the enmity of man for man. Now War is a living creature, a god, and walks in flesh among you. How many years before Pendrake can banish him this time? Remember, pride was what tempted Morningstar to fall, and now he is quenched in the depth of the sea.”
“And I wonder, Oberon, to hear the same contempt for mankind that came from his lips come from yours!”
“If a father will not let his children play with matches, is this contempt?” Oberon’s voice was soft, but there was an echo of ancient strength in it; and Lemuel wondered how old this being was to whom he spoke. Lemuel really had no idea from whence Oberon had come, nor, truly, what he was.
“What have you come for, Oberon?”
“To forgive you.”
Lemuel was astonished. “What?”
“You failed to wake the sleepers when duty required; for that failure you are forgiven, for Morningstar, frightened, was defeated merely by the name and rumor of the heavenly knights I have sleeping in the Autumn Stars. But do not be deceived by Anton Pendrake’s overweening vainglory. It was not he, but you, who conquered; and your only weapon, the weapon you carried in your heart, your patience, your faithfulness, and, yes, your loyalty to me. Your chief weapon, one even angels could not face, was your willingness to end this Earth that a better world be born.”
Lemuel was silent, staring up at that half-hidden, twilight-shadowed, and kingly face. “I accept your forgiveness. Why do the powers of the dream-world no longer bow to the seven sigils? Why do the dream-colts no longer come when called?”
“You know why. My servants are my own. Until you renew your fealty to me, they will not obey.”
Lemuel was silent. Then he said, “I need to learn more of you before I can take such an oath.”
“I have brought the mother of all dream-colts here to speak with you.”
The Unicorn stepped shyly around Oberon, who had draped his hand across her mane. She spoke in a voice like a woodwind: “Beloved, in your hand is the relic of my dead husband; it is the only part of him which still abides on earth. I ask, in pity’s name, that you restore it to me, for it is mine.”
“What shall you do with it, great lady, if I give it to you?”
Oberon spoke up, “I would unlock the gates of paradise.”
Lemuel said, “And I cannot?”
Oberon said, “What spirits will make your works in dream’s high kingdom? I have ten thousand times ten thousand angels and lios-alfar at my command. Enough to remake the world entire. Have you spirit enough to raise even a single tower?”
Lemuel did not know how to answer.
The Unicorn said, “If you seek to keep my husband’s horn, I charge you to use it with all wisdom, all compassion, all mercy.” Oberon looked surprised, and took his hand slowly from her mane.
She said, “There are creatures in the deep which can overwhelm the earth; and so they shall, if the ways are opened in the mist between this Earth and that other world. Your protection, heretofore, was that the mists of Everness made men forgetful to the dangerous wonders around them. Will you now raise the mists, and call on men to forget these dreadful happenings? When they wake to-morrow, all will seem no more than a fading dream.”
Lemuel said, “Will the dead be made alive again, or will the widows of all the men who died fighting Acheron simply forget why they weep?”
Oberon said, “The Cauldron of Rebirth is mine. Have I not already promised to restore to pure and uncorrupted flesh those who bow to me?”
Lemuel said, “What need I do to raise this mist?”
The Unicorn said, “Only Oberon knows the names that compel Forgetfulness.”
Lemuel shook his head. “Pendrake would never agree.”
Oberon said sternly, “I do not ask him.”
Lemuel looked up, drawing a deep breath. “But you must. Yes, I have served with great patience and faithfulness all these years. But you forget that I do not owe my fealty to you, Lord of the Autumn Stars, but to the original founder from whom our grant comes. Only Arthur or his heir can revoke my powers. The heir of Arthur is Anton Pendrake; he bears the sword. I have been charged by him to restore the House of Everness; look; here is my mark.”
And he opened the throat of his shirt, and exposed his shoulder. Where the flat of the magic blade had touched him, a golden stroke of light seemed to gleam from his flesh. He touched his shoulders with his two fingers, and touched his fingers to the earth. “I call upon the world to witness.”
The Unicorn said, “Beloved, I see you still work heaven’s will with your heart, even if you say with your lips you do not. Henceforward, for as long as your are faithful, I say to you, my children shall come when you call.”
Oberon bowed. “I forgive this, your lack of courtesy as well. Like Merlin, you would not return the stolen horn; but, like Merlin, you may yet do my will, whether you will or no; for they say that all spirits do my works, those who rebel no less than those who obey.”
Oberon turned and walked away up the hill. The Unicorn followed, and where she stepped, leaves and flowers came forth from the burnt earth.
At the top of the hill Var was waiting for them.
Oberon said to Var, “Come. Your wife is waiting. A place had been made ready for you at my table, and you will be given white raiment after you bathe in my Cauldron, and wash your years and tears away.”
A light like that a silvery lamp might shed, or a lowflying star, appeared through the tree-boles, glinting in the darkening gloom; and Var set off toward it down a path which had not been there a moment ago.
Oberon turned and looked back down into the twilight at the ruins of Everness, the toppled brick, the destroyed beauty.
In some places the shattered beams of wood still smoldered.
He asked, “Eurynome, why did you so suddenly speak to allow him keep your horn? Why did you offer your children again to bear him aloft?”
She said, “It is not your place to question me, young one. Yet for the sake of the Demiurge who first wore your crown, I will answer: I saw a deeper power in the blood of Everness than we had guessed, and I foresaw that he would call upon the Pendragon for aid. They can do little without the spirit-world to do their work; and yet, great Oberon, how many spirits, in this land, are loyal to your dream rather than to the Pendragon’s?”
“That remains to be seen.”
“Then see; for I foresaw this.” A nod of her head, a sway of her horn, drew his one-eyed gaze back toward the ruins.
Softly and gently as a dream, a tower came into view above the ruins, with four great gates looking toward the four quarters of the earth. Runes of power were written on the doors, and on the crown, the statue of a winged horse reared.
Even as they watched, the tower seemed to grow solid against the setting sun, and then it cast a shadow.
“The tower is still surrounded by ruins and rubble,” said Oberon.
“But it is a beginning, and Galen has recalled his home in loving detail,” said the Unicorn in the soft music of her voice.
“I see now what made us bow,” said Oberon, “but I will not ponder it. If not Lemuel, and if not Galen, then the Guardians to come will one day swear fealty to me, recall their oaths, and wake the sleepers. Go ahead then, with my courtesy and thanks return to the One Unicorn, whose image you bear, and carry her this message for me: I ask that the Unicorn’s third race of children, the dream-colts of Celebradon, may continue their services to Everness, so that the Guardians will regard us with favor and gratitude. And one day they will forget their pride, remember me, and the horn shall be mine once more, as it was in the age when I overcame Ouranos. But for me, now it is my turn to practice patience.”