Sword of the Bright Lady (22 page)

Christopher hurriedly packed for the trip, Tom and Helga repacking everything behind him so it actually fit into the saddlebags, while Karl watered his horse. Helga wrapped yesterday's bread and cold bacon in a dishcloth for their lunch.

Returning from the stable, Karl frowned in disapproval.

“Wear the armor,” he said. “On that horse you will look a thief without it.”

Christopher noticed that Karl had already replaced his own armor, and his horse carried a shield and crossbow as well. The omnipresent sword Christopher could understand; samurai had worn theirs everywhere, as a sign of honor and class. But the wealth of rough, well-used weaponry that surrounded Karl at all times suggested an unnerving level of savagery in the world outside the little village. Without further remarks he struggled into the chain mail.

They rode for the rest of the day, stopping only for the horses' sake. It was allegedly spring now, but someone had forgotten to turn off the ice machine. They avoided contact as much as possible, and when they did see people they didn't say hello. Karl wore a scarf over his face so he wouldn't be recognized, almost a bandit's mask. Between that and their swords, the peasants were careful to look the other way. Here was fear, finally, and Christopher felt like an outlaw, the stark contrast to his role as village clown rubbing against him as uncomfortably as the saddle.

They ate a cold lunch on the road, thanks to Helga's competence. Christopher had been too busy to see how she dealt with Karl's return. It didn't matter. Karl was in soldier mode and oblivious to women. He hadn't even reacted to Fae.

But he had noticed. On a deserted stretch of dirt road, hardly more than a trail, he interrogated Christopher about his living arrangements.

“You've become quite a lordling, Pater. Manservants and pretty girls.”

“They're part of my plan of world domination,” Christopher replied, trying to be funny but too cold and tired to carry it off.

“How do you know they are not agents of the Invisible Guild?”

A terrible thought he had not even considered.

Karl shook his head at Christopher's stricken silence.

“The correct answer is, because Pater Svengusta has known them all their lives. Still, it would be wise to pay the Vicar for a truth-spell sometime.”

They spent the night in a village tavern, Karl conversing brusquely with the innkeeper and paying for a single room that he blocked shut by dragging the bed in front of the door. “Use the chamber pot if you have to,” he said, and went to sleep instantly.

The next day they turned into a well-kept country estate just after noon. A pair of stable hands greeted them in the stable, although saving their comforting words for the horses. Christopher didn't see any armed guards until the door of the manor house was opened by the most competent-looking soldier Christopher had yet seen, outside of Karl. Well, and the sickening Hobilar.

The soldier recognized Karl without speaking, but he wanted a name from Christopher.

“Pater Christopher, um, sir,” he answered, uncertain of how to address the soldier.

“Ser,” corrected the man without any visible offense.

“This is the captain of the Saint's guard,” Karl explained.

“Such as it is,” the man grunted. He was thirty-something, tall and powerfully built. He had on a light chain shirt and wore a longsword and oversized dagger. “Knight-Captain Steuben,” he formally introduced himself, and inclined his head at Christopher in a way that made Christopher think of Prussians. At least he didn't click his heels.

“Can I ask why I've met the Saint twice but never seen you?” Christopher asked.

“You just did,” Steuben said. “But to answer your question, my duties are normally considered ceremonial. I rarely leave Kingsrock, as the Saint is hardly expected to be in danger in his own lands. But your little adventure with the Invisible Guild has everybody in a tizzy.”

They followed him into a large dining hall, where Saint Krellyan and a handful of others were finishing a lunch buffet. Karl bowed stiffly to Krellyan, and Christopher copied him, the formality surprising, but the Saint immediately released them from it.

“At ease, Goodman, Pater,” Krellyan said. “Have you eaten? No, of course Karl has not delayed for mere necessities of the body. Please, help yourselves.”

While they filled their plates, Karl and Steuben speculated on the reasons for the mummers' attack. The discussion led nowhere. Apparently Faren's interrogation had been no more profitable than Vicar Rana's. Christopher didn't pay much attention because he was distracted by the buffet. He had forgotten what it was like to have to choose what went on his plate. There were actual pastries, not sweet like doughnuts but still light and airy compared to the ordinary bread, and once he realized Karl wasn't interested in them, he took the rest of the platter. He could get fat on this kind of food. That would be a problem he'd love to have.

“Are you cursed?” Krellyan asked. “You seem to draw violence and trouble to you from the farthest quarters of the world.”

“I don't know,” Christopher said, his mouth still full of fruit tart. “Am I cursed? Can't you tell?” He was tired of being blamed for what other people did to him.

“I'm sorry, it was a poor attempt at drollery.” Krellyan paused and then spoke in Celestial, tracing a glyph in the air with his hand while peering intently at Christopher. “But no, I don't think you are.”

Krellyan had a way of making you regret your petty slips.

“The fault is mine, Saint,” he said contritely. “I just don't see how I could do things differently.”

“You don't see how you could try to fit in more?” Krellyan asked gently.

“Oh, I see how it could be done. I just don't see how
I
could do it.”

Krellyan sighed. “Neither do I. It does seem odd that one first-ranked priest should matter so much. It's not like people haven't knocked heads before, but this seems never-ending.”

“Well,” Christopher struggled to explain, “I think it's more than that. I'm, uh, I've got different ideas about things. And I think that disturbs a lot of people.”

“It always does,” Krellyan agreed with resignation. “Now, I understand you have something to disturb me with.”

“I do, but it's more impressive at night. Can I make my presentation after dark?”

Everybody in the room was suddenly staring at him.

“It's a light show,” he said quickly. “The lights show up better at night, that's all. But I can do it in the daytime, if you want.”

“Yes, after sundown will be fine. No, Captain,” he said to Steuben with a smile, “do not fret. The Pater is new to our lands. He likely does not even know why you are suddenly alarmed and suspicious.”

“It's true,” Christopher admitted sheepishly. “I mean, I guess nighttime's favored by evil, or something like that, but I didn't expect you all to be superstitious.”

“You'd think the man didn't have demons where he came from,” the captain snorted.

“I didn't. I mean, we don't,” Christopher said sadly, nostalgia pressing in.

Steuben was startled but looked at him with sympathy. “Then you came from a blessed land indeed. I'm sorry you got lost and wound up in our little corner of misery.”

“You didn't . . .” started a young priestess. She stammered to a halt.

“Go on, Sister,” Krellyan encouraged her.

“You didn't come from a higher plane, did you?” she asked shyly.

“No,” Christopher said, glad he could answer the question honestly. “Absolutely not. We had plenty of monsters. Just not demons.” Pol Pot and Stalin leapt to mind. “Our monsters went about in the day.”

“So do enough of ours,” Krellyan agreed. “Go relax, refresh yourselves. We will reconvene at sundown.”

A servant girl led them upstairs to a pair of small rooms. She offered to draw them a bath, if they wanted. Christopher didn't want to impose, but yes, he said, that would be fantastic, and it was. He ran the girl ragged asking for hot water until she finally disappeared on him. He didn't know what Karl did with his time, although the man seemed quite refreshed when sundown came.

Krellyan had set up court on the back porch of the house. The household assembled there, sipping mugs of hot spiced tea, dressed in warm, genteel clothes. The light-stones shone out into the night, and people talked and laughed softly. It was like a cocktail party except that there wasn't a stereo playing in the background.

The porch faced a large garden, covered in thick snow. Christopher set his rocket launcher up on the far side of a brick planter, where it wouldn't hurt anybody if the tube failed and exploded. He loaded his first rocket, a simple green burster.

“I'll need a real candle, not a light-stone,” he said.

It was a measure of how dependent on magic they were that it took them a few minutes to find one.

“Everybody understands this goes boom, right? And the stable's secure, somebody is with the horses?”

“My captain assures me all is in readiness,” Krellyan said. Steuben was standing next to the Saint, looking jaundiced, alert, and suspicious all at the same time.

“Here goes.” Christopher lit the fuse and stepped back behind the planter. “It takes a few seconds,” he explained. “It should be about—”

The rocket shrieked into the night with a whomp and a cloud of white smoke. But the internal fuse didn't light, and it fell silently into the distant woods.

“Interesting,” Krellyan said.

“Is that white smoke dangerous?” Steuben asked.

“Oooooh!” the ladies said.

Karl, however, said nothing.

“Actually,” Christopher explained, “that one didn't work. Let me try again.” He went down and reloaded the tube with a yellow burster. It was difficult because his fingers were numb from the cold, compounded by unexpected nervousness.

But this time the rocket exploded into a star over the dark fields and forest. The yellow was not that different from plain white. He needed stronger salts. Christopher stopped analyzing the color and paid attention to the crowd.

“Ahhh,” the ladies said. They liked this one.

“Is that yellow fire dangerous?” Steuben asked.

“Well, no more so than any fire,” Christopher said. “I mean, it's not magical or anything. There's no magic involved here.” He loaded up one of his untested designs, a multicolored sparkler.

It worked better than he had hoped, pale-blue and green rays streaking out from the explosion, the chemically treated bits of paper twinkling in burning flight. The effect was enhanced by the two colors being on roughly opposite sides of the burst.

“Are those sparkles dangerous?” Steuben asked.

“Not particularly,” Christopher said absently, thinking about his next test.

This one was supposed to be a two-stage explosion, the first one green, the second one yellow. It didn't exactly work out. The green burst was good, but the yellow charge apparently came apart too soon and merely fizzled a little.

“I have a few more of these,” Christopher said before Steuben could ask his inevitable question. “They are variations on the basic theme, just different colors to amuse people. What I want to show you is how this craft could be turned to weaponry.”

He loaded his bomb, its payload a full quarter-pound of his finest milled blasting powder. He winced at the thought of a misfire or the bomb exploding in the tube, but he had a point to make.

“This one will be really loud,” he warned. He lit the fuse, instinctively covering his ears.

The rocket streaked up and burst high in the sky, rumbling like thunder after a too-near lightning strike. The porch shook, the audience shrieked most satisfyingly, and even Karl seemed to notice. The boom echoed off some outlying hilltop, and in the starlight the huge white cloud floated peacefully away while the clerks chattered excitedly. Only Krellyan sat unmoved, thinking.

“That was definitely dangerous,” Steuben said, raising his voice above the prattle. Other noises leaked around the edge of the house, grooms shouting and the horses acting up in the stable.

“I think we are done here, Pater,” Krellyan announced. “You've gotten our attention. Now let us go inside, and you can tell us what it means.”

He ushered his giggling flock of servants into the house with his usual gentle smile. To Christopher, it seemed strained.

Krellyan assembled his clerical staff in the main hall while the servants went to prepare dinner.

“Tell us what you intend,” he ordered Christopher.

“I want to make weapons based on this craft,” Christopher said. “Like crossbows, only deadlier. I don't know yet how well I can do—that depends on the skill of your smiths. But I know I can make a weapon that will supersede all other ranged attacks.”

“And you need money.”

“Of course,” Christopher said. “Tons of it. I want to equip the entire draft levee with these weapons. Then I'll be happy to march to war with them. We'll actually have a chance.”