The Sword of Straw (10 page)

“No,” Annie said, adding, scrupulously: “Not to my knowledge.” She was concentrating on her driving, unable to find an appropriate response beyond what she had already said.

“I understood there was someone called Hazel…?”

Annie was startled. “You’re very well informed!”

“I make it my business to be. These boys are in my care, after all. Nathan has talked about her.”

“She’s his friend,” Annie said. “That’s all. They sort of grew up together—a brother–sister situation. I’m quite sure that hasn’t changed.”

Father Crowley nodded. “You would know,” he said. “You’re a perceptive woman.”

And then: “I’m told he’s been having disturbed nights. It’s unusual for a boy that age not to sleep well—”

Annie’s hands jerked on the wheel; involuntarily, she swerved. Fortunately, they were on a quiet country road with no other traffic in sight. She mounted the shoulder and braked sharply, breathing hard.

“Mrs. Ward—”

“Sorry. Sorry…”

“I didn’t mean to alarm you. These are minor worries. I’m sure Nathan’s perfectly healthy.” He had a deep, resonant voice, as if there were a tiny echo somewhere in his throat. Annie should have been soothed, but she wasn’t.

“Insomnia isn’t a serious problem,” Father Crowley continued. “It was simply that—last year—his absence from the dormitory was noted, no doubt to go to the bathroom, and I believe he asked about sleeping pills once. It concerns me a little. I will watch to see if it recurs.”

Annie pulled herself together as best she could. “Thank you,” she said.

“There. Are you all right now? You mustn’t drive on till you’re ready.”

“I’ll be okay.” The engine had stalled. She restarted it, slowly, annoyed to find herself trembling with the aftermath of shock.

“Tell me,” said the abbot, “does Nathan dream vividly?”

N
ATHAN WAS
talking to Eric Rhindon in the apartment above the antiques shop where he lived with his new wife, Rowena Thorn. Rowena, a gray-haired woman of sixty-odd, long widowed, whose recent marriage to an impecunious asylum seeker had stunned her entire acquaintance, was out at a weekend antiques fair. Eric was a former Eosian, accidentally pitchforked into this world (by Nathan), who had adapted with unexpected ease to what was, for him, a low-tech, low-magic, quasi-primitive society. He was seven feet tall and a couple of thousand years old, with a long, curving face, wild dark hair, deep purple eyes, and an outlook on life permanently colored by his seeing the early
Star Wars
trilogy shortly after his arrival here, and believing it was a factual account of a more civilized past.

Nathan was telling him about his latest dreams, and the mention of the sword.

“The Sword of
stroar,
” Eric affirmed.
Stroar,
Nathan knew, was a metal peculiar to the world of Eos, superstrong and harder than steel—but he always thought of the artifact as the Sword of Straw. “Is very powerful weapon, but cursed. The first Grandir who made the three—the Cup, the Sword, the Crown—he was killed by friend, best friend, with the sword. His blood filled Cup.” The definite article came and went in Eric’s speech. “He saw it before, with aid of force, but could not avert.”

“Why not?” Nathan wanted to know.

Eric shrugged, a lavish shrug of huge shoulders. “His fate to die. Must accept fate.”

“Did his friend hate him?”

“I not know. Maybe. The story is old, old even in my world. Details forgotten. Maybe there was a woman.”

“Could it have been a sacrifice?” Nathan suggested. “Perhaps the first Grandir
ordered
his friend to kill him, to—to empower the three. It could have been a sort of preliminary to the Great Spell—the one the present Grandir has to perform, if he can work it out.”

“Good idea.” Eric brightened. “Much force in lifeblood. Is new thought, but good. Maybe Grandir not murdered at all.”

“You said once, the sword moved…by itself?”

“Is legend, but make-believe illegal in my world, so could be true. Three kept in cave for thousands of years, but last Grandir move them, hide in other worlds, away from people who try to steal them and make Great Spell themselves. So Sangreal in this world, Sword and Crown—” He made a broad gesture signifying that their whereabouts was open to conjecture.

“Away from the neo-salvationists,” Nathan agreed. “Like poor Kwanji Ley.”

“But even in other worlds, three need protection,” Eric went on. “We know last Grandir send gnomons to protect Sangreal.” Nathan shuddered, remembering. “In one legend, ancient spirit imprisoned in sword so only one person can lift it, or member of one family—Grandir’s family. Spirit very powerful, very angry—not like to be trapped in sword. When wrong person touch it, spirit take over, stab him.”

“What kind of spirit is it?” Nathan asked.

“Something very old—from the Beginning, when universe in chaos. Before humans learn to control force, it is free, wild. Many spirits on different planets—some move through space. You would call them—spirits of element? Weather spirits, spirits of water, fire, rock…”

“Elementals?” Nathan hazarded. “We have them here, Uncle Barty told me, but I don’t think they’re very powerful. He says they’re all instinct, no thought.”

Eric nodded enthusiastically. “But early ones have power. Men get power, fight them, subdue, make them sleep forever, but a few survive, learn to think like humans. Those ones most dangerous. But Grandir stronger than elemental; they say, he fix one in sword, use many spells. So no one can touch sword till right person, right time.”

“The Sword in the Stone,” Nathan said dreamily. “Except this one is more likely to be the sword in the foot.”

“If you find this thing,” Eric said seriously, “you not pick it up. I not want you hurt.”

“Maybe I could muffle it in cloth,” Nathan said. “Or wear gloves.”

“You think people not try that?”

“Yes, I suppose so. Anyway, I may not need to pick it up. I mean, I know I had to find the Grail, but I don’t know about this. Perhaps it should stay where it is.”

“Is better, yes.” Eric, who was partial to coffee, got up to make some more.

“Does the legend say anything about a princess?” Nathan inquired cautiously.

“A
princess
? No. Why you ask?”

“Oh, I don’t know. There are always princesses in these kind of stories. I thought it would make a change from diabolical spirits and stuff.”

Eric looked at him out of gemstone-bright eyes that were suddenly very shrewd. “I have bad feeling about this,” he announced.

A
T TEA
with Bartlemy, Annie told him about her investigations. “I don’t really think Father Crowley knows anything,” she said, “but he’s awfully perceptive. Actually, he reminds me a bit of you. Only—”

“Thinner?” Bartlemy said.

“Yes.” Annie smiled. “More like a real wizard.”

Bartlemy laughed. “And the Hackforths?”

“They just seemed so…sad. It’s a dreadful situation. I can’t believe Giles could be doing anything really evil—he’s just suffering.”

“He’s vulnerable,” Bartlemy pointed out. “He could be used.”

“Mm. Selena—his wife—thinks Damon could be possessed. At least—she said he was
like
someone possessed. Is that possible?”

“It depends. Possession is very rare. A spirit can easily inhabit an inanimate object, but to take over a living person, with a soul, that person must invite it in. Like hypnosis: you can’t be hypnotized to do anything you wouldn’t do of your own free will. Nobody’s mind can be controlled by another, magically or otherwise, unless, in some way, they allow it. It’s one of the Ultimate Laws, as old as Time. Few people are stupid enough to invite possession.”

“Damon’s a teenager,” Annie reminded him. Almost a joke, and wasted without Nathan to object to it.

“Nonetheless…”

Bartlemy suggested she stay for supper, and she called Nathan on his new cell phone to tell him to join them. (The phone had been a fourteenth-birthday present, on a Pay-As-You-Go deal that he had to fund from his allowance.) Over the meal, Bartlemy steered the conversation back to the Hackforths, and Father Crowley.

“He sees things,” Nathan said. “Everyone respects him. He knows stuff about all the boys, and nobody can work out
how
he knows it.”

“He certainly seems to know a lot about you,” Bartlemy said thoughtfully. “Or guess.”

“I can’t think where he got that business about me not being there in the night. Ned Gable noticed, but he wouldn’t have told anyone else, I know he wouldn’t. He’s not the tale-telling type.”

“A good headmaster should be omniscient about his pupils,” Bartlemy said.

“The worst thing about all this,” Annie remarked, “is that you start suspecting everybody, just on the strength of some perfectly innocent inquiry. It’s a lot worse than the trouble last year. We have too many clues, and no crime. Well, only a burglary that went wrong. What’s the collective noun for clues?”

“Like a gaggle of geese?” Nathan was intrigued. “How about—a muddle of clues?”

“An entanglement,” Bartlemy said. “At least for the moment. Have you found out any more about this new world of yours, or would you rather not say?”

“There’s a city,” Nathan said, “called Carboneck, or Wilderslee. I think one’s the city and one’s the kingdom, but I don’t know which is which. Most of the people have left, and the king’s an invalid. He picked up the sword, and it bit him—stabbed him, I mean—and now the wound won’t heal, and everything’s under a curse.”

“Stories don’t change”—Bartlemy sighed—“wherever you are. Does this king have a daughter?”

“How did you guess?”

“They always do.”

Before they left, Nathan remembered to mention Hazel’s meeting with Woody, and how he had told her the dwarf was still hanging about. “He can’t get the sword,” Nathan said. “In any case, there’s no proof it was ever here. But he might still be after the Grail, if he knows or suspects you have it.”

“The dwarf is another clue,” Annie said, “but to what?”

“Sometime,” Bartlemy concluded, “I shall have to talk to him. When he’s hungry enough, he’ll come here.”

“He kills rabbits,” Nathan offered, “but Hazel didn’t mention if Woody said he cooked them.”

“I must prepare a wild rabbit stew,” Bartlemy said, “and leave the kitchen door open. True dwarfs have an excellent sense of smell.”

“Perhaps he likes them best raw,” Nathan suggested. “Like Gollum.”

“Gollum never had my cooking,” Bartlemy said tranquilly.

R
EMEMBERING THE
omniscience of Father Crowley, Nathan knew he mustn’t dream when he was at school. If he didn’t let his mind dwell on Carboneck (or Wilderslee), if he focused on math, history, cricket, if he fell asleep without thinking of the princess, then nothing would happen. He was very nearly sure of that. But math was sines and cosines, which bored him, and history was the Agricultural Revolution (dull), and even cricket allowed too much time for his thoughts to wander in the wrong direction. And in bed, with the lights out, when there was nothing to get in the way, the princess’s image rose up before him—not the most beautiful of women, he knew that, but somehow irresistible, if only to him. His memory of her was elusive, details came and went, he could never quite form a complete picture, but that simply made her more tantalizing, more enchanting, more special. He wasn’t in love with her—well, not very much—but he knew he had to help her, and even the Traitor’s Sword seemed only an adjunct to her story.

Inevitably, when the dream carried him back to Carboneck, he realized at once that he was in trouble.

He was visible. Not a solid being but a misty, ghost-like creature who would have to hide from general sight, more substantial than he had been in Frimbolus’s workroom but still far from real. And of course, he was wearing pajamas—the curse of travelers in other worlds, from the children who followed Peter Pan into Neverland to Arthur Dent on his galactic voyages. He wasn’t particularly fashion-minded but he
really
didn’t want to meet the princess for the first time as a pajama-clad specter. “I am the Ghost of Christmas Past,” he said to himself with a sigh, surveying hazy legs in pants that were just too short. He was in an alleyway, it was twilight, and at least there was no one about. He began to walk uphill, hoping he was headed for the royal house.

After about twenty yards he found himself crossing a wider street, with light spilling from a half-open door a little way in front. A boy and a girl were standing in the light, deep in talk. The boy was maybe a couple of years older than Nathan, with lank black hair, a very thin face, and somber shadows under his eyes.

The girl was Princess Nellwyn.

Nathan got as near as he dared, hoping he blended with the softness of dusk, before slipping into the lee of a wall.

“You shouldn’t have come,” the boy was saying. “It gets dark early; there may be demons out.”

“I’m not afraid of them,” Nell said staunchly. “Anyway, I had to.”

“We could’ve collected the physic in the morning—”

“Bronlee needs it now. I saw how ill she is. Frim—Dr. Quayne—said she should have the first dose tonight. It’ll bring the fever down and help her sleep without the delirium.”

“I’m grateful,” the boy said, sounding curiously reluctant. “Very grateful. But you shouldn’t have taken the risk…I’ll take you home.” Nathan thought he didn’t sound especially keen, though the distance couldn’t be far and Nell’s company was surely desirable.

“This is my city,” the princess said. “Nothing can hurt me here. Don’t you remember I’m a witch?”

“Mud pies into chocolate.” The boy grinned. “I remember.” And suddenly Nathan realized he was the same one who had taunted her in the garden, when they were both much younger.

“I can turn a nightscreech into a heartsong, and Urulation into lullaby,” she declared. “You needn’t look after me, but
I
might look after
you
. If you insist on tagging along…”

He hesitated, but courage or courtesy won out. “Wait a moment,” he said shortly. “I’m coming.”

He went inside, reappearing a few minutes later wearing a cloak with the hood thrown back and carrying a staff or walking stick with a spiked tip and a solid metal knob by way of a handle.