The Sword of Straw (12 page)

He used several chisels to carve the snake patterns around the rim of the cup, each with a different-colored glow, a different pitch of hum. Nathan had no idea how long it took—perhaps days, or even weeks—he was too busy concentrating on the process, watching the skill of the craftsman-wizard with complete absorption. When the cup was finished he placed it on the anvil and spoke in a clear, cold voice, words Nathan could not understand, yet he knew they were words of power. The Grandir drew a circle around the cup and enclosed it in a cone of flame, chanting all the time, and lights strobed over it, and there were whisperings, and mutterings, and a dark smoke whirled around it and was sucked into the very stone. The Grail changed, becoming opaque, and the fires and lights vanished, and the whispers were stilled, and it stood alone on the anvil, a cold, inanimate thing. The Grandir picked it up, carried it to the pool, and bent down to dip it in the water. When he lifted it, the cup was full to the brim, but the water inside had turned red.

Time passed. Now the wizard was working on the sword, beating out the metal, which was a silvery color with a strange bluish luster.
Stroar,
Nathan thought, wondering if it was an element, like iron, or a compound, like steel. Eric had told him once it was the strongest metal and could be tempered until it was sharp enough to slice through a hair on water. The Grandir had acquired a huge stone wheel that seemed to turn automatically, and he used it to refine the blade, while fire flecks spurted and the grating of metal on rock made Nathan’s teeth ache. The Grandir paused every so often to test the edge on his finger, drawing blood, but it was a long while before he was satisfied. Then he laid the sword on the anvil and performed the magic rituals, only this time the flames danced up and down the blade, turning from orange to blue, from blue to white, and were drawn into the metal, until the sword itself was flame. The mutterings had a tinny sound and rose to a shrill crescendo, becoming the hiss of rapiers that cut the air, the scream of weapon on weapon. There was something wicked in the chorus, a kind of glee, like the voice of a thousand swords, crying out:
You made us to kill. We kill. With or without you, we kill.
The Traitor’s Sword, Nathan thought—the Sword of Straw. It was the last Grandir, not the first, who had trapped the spirit guardian in its blade, but the sword had been from the beginning blood-hungry, spellbound to kill.

When it was ready the Grandir took it and dipped it in the pool, and the drops that ran from the blade were dark as rubies, uncoiling into a dull stain on the surface of the water.

The scene changed. Nathan’s consciousness seemed to flick into darkness for a moment, reemerging at a later point in time, and in a slightly different part of the cavern. He was close to the anvil, watching the Grandir placing an iron circlet there, held in a pair of tongs and glowing orange from the smelting. It was shaped like a conventional crown, but the Grandir began to beat out the points, turning them into multiple spikes that he bent and twisted into a form that appeared random, though Nathan was certain there was a specific purpose in the design. He was reminded of the serpentine incisions around the cup, only this pattern was spikier, adorned with thorn tips that the sorcerer chiseled to needle-sharpness. An iron crown, Nathan said to himself, a crown of thorns.
A crown of thorns…
It shone ice blue in the magic, and shadows from every corner of the cavern were drawn into it. The Grandir lowered it into the pool with the tongs, and the water hissed and steamed around it. When he lifted it out it was cool. He placed it on his own head, and blood ran down his face from the thorn tips, though Nathan didn’t think they cut his skin.

Another man came into the cavern, a man only a little less tall than the Grandir, with a physiognomy in whose narrow curves there was a trace of what might have been cruelty. His expression changed when he saw the crown.

“What have you done?” he demanded. “Romandos—”

“Do not use my name so carelessly, even here.” Their speech sounded faintly archaic to Nathan’s ear. “Who let you in?”

“The guards know I am your friend; they would not refuse me. But—that monstrosity you’ve made—a parody of the crown of ancient kings…”

“No parody,” said the Grandir. “The first rulers of empire wore a wreath made from the thorn trees of Callidor, to show they were strong enough to bear pain and the burden of leadership. Only later did the crown become a thing of mere beauty, a symbol of power and vanity. This is a true crown: iron to repel evil spirits, thorn-twined in the form of the king-wreaths of old. You cannot make a Great Spell with a common ornament. Great Spells are woven from truth, and pain, and blood.”

“Lifeblood…,” said the other, and Nathan wondered if his dark pallor was fear, or eagerness, or a little of both.

“Indeed, but not yet. All I know is merely a foreseeing. The time will come—maybe in a thousand years, maybe in a hundred thousand—but it
will
come. The sacrifice is preordained. Our universe cannot endure forever. The Great Spell will transform the very cosmos—”

“The sacrifice,” the other repeated. “It is expedient for us that one man should die for the people.”

Nathan thought he had heard that phrase used somewhere before, and wondered if it was multiversal.

“One man must die to save the world. It is always the way.”

“And he who performs that Spell will wield unimaginable power…” Nathan could almost hear him thinking, the wheels turning in his head.

“And bear unimaginable responsibility.” The Grandir removed the crown, replacing it on the anvil. “Whoever he is, he must go into the Spell with a heart of ice and a will of iron, or it will destroy him. The corrupt cannot perform such magics. Remember that, Lugair.”

“Real power is for the chosen few,” Lugair murmured, but he looked sideways at the Grandir out of narrowed eyes.

“This is the last of three,” Romandos continued. “They will be kept safe all down the ages, until the hour of doom. It is fated. When the end draws near, the three will be united in the circle of power, and the blood of the Grandir will release the Spell.”

“So the Grandir—the last Grandir—will be the sacrifice?”

“I did not say so. I said the
blood
of the Grandir, not his life.”

“But only lifeblood can activate a Great Spell. That we all know.” Lugair was frowning.

“The answer will become clear, in time. There are many things even I cannot discern for now. Foresight gives you only a glimpse of the road ahead.”

“I see,” said Lugair, and once again he gave Romandos that sidelong look, which made his face slanted and sly.

Nathan had become so absorbed, he had forgotten he was dreaming, forgotten that, though invisible and intangible, he was a part of the scene. Suddenly he noticed he was floating over the pool, and below him the surface was broken by spreading ripples, as if his unseen essence had disturbed the water. He hoped no one would perceive the phenomenon, but the Grandir had turned to stare intently in his direction, and then he lifted his hand and spoke a word of Command. A lance of darkness stabbed toward Nathan, catching him in the chest like a punch from a fist of steel—hurling him across the barrier between worlds, out of the dream, out of time…

He was lying in his own bed, winded, gasping, feeling rather sick. It took some while for the sensation to wear off.

B
ACK AT
school, Nathan was increasingly aware of Damon Hackforth, elbowing him in the corridors, watching him from the edge of the cricket pitch or behind the wire around the tennis court. The older boy was good looking in a sullen sort of way that went down well with susceptible girls, but Nathan was increasingly troubled by his aura of suppressed violence and the obsession in his gaze. Even Ned Gable remarked on it. “Don’t know why he’s so interested in you,” he said as they finished batting for the afternoon and went in for tea. “He always seems to be around lately, staring at you in that broody way. You don’t think he’s keen on you or something, do you?”

“ ’Course not,” Nathan responded. “He’s not gay. Anyway, he doesn’t look at me like that.”

“Mm. Looks sort of menacing, if you ask me. Maybe he’s got a fixation on you.”

“What kind of fixation?”

“Like…you’re really clever, you’re great at sport, you don’t have a sister who everyone thinks is wonderful. Maybe you’re the person he wants to be.” This was deep thinking for Ned, who had been much impressed by a program on Freud the class had seen recently. “Like, you’re his—his alter ego. You’ve got the talent and the personality that he thinks he should have. You’re his
him
.”

“That’s idiotic. I’m four years younger. Nobody could be that stupid.”

“Your being younger might make it worse for him,” Ned said profoundly. “More galling.”

Nathan dismissed the notion, but later that week he was emerging from the library after some research for history when he found himself face-to-face with Damon. It was nearly supper-time and he was late, and suddenly there seemed to be no one near them. The library door swung shut; its only occupants were far away beyond the hush of book-laden shelves. If Nathan called out, he wasn’t sure they would hear. The empty corridor stretched away toward distant windows filled with evening sunshine. The other boys must be already in the dining room: there were no footsteps in hallway or classroom, no scurrying down the adjacent stair. The whole abbey was mysteriously transformed into a place almost as vacant and as quiet as the dead city.

And in the midst of the quiet Damon Hackforth stood there with a look of ugly satisfaction on his face. There was malice in that look, and hatred, and a sort of gloating because he had caught Nathan alone at last, and he was bigger and stronger, and there was no one at hand to intervene.

He wouldn’t really hurt me…would he?
Nathan thought.
He wouldn’t really be that dumb…

But Damon didn’t look as though intelligent thinking were a factor in his life at that moment.

“The wonderboy,” he said. “The scholarship kid who thinks he’s smarter than everyone else. I’ve been watching you: you know that? Fancy yourself, don’t you? Shane Warne on the cricket pitch, Federer on the tennis court—and then you’re back in the library like a good little swot. Little swot, piece of snot…A jumped-up Paki brat thinking you can outdo your betters—”

“For heaven’s sake,” Nathan reacted without reflection, “not that old-fashioned race-and-class stuff. That’s
antique.
”

Damon’s hand shot out, lightning-fast, seizing him by the throat.

“Don’t you
dare
talk back at me! I’m older than you—I’m better than you—I’m
worse
than you. Do you understand? You’re the good boy, I’m the bad boy. In the real world good boys always lose.” (
Which real world?
Nathan wondered, in a tiny detached corner of his mind.
Probably all of them…
) “Go on, squirm. Squirm like a rabbit. You can’t get free. Soon you’ll whine and whimper like the pathetic piece of
nothing
you really are. The others’ll see you: no more wonderboy—no more Shane Warne, no more Federer—just a sniveling little rabbit. I’m going to make you
cry,
Nathan Ward.”

“Crying doesn’t matter.” Nathan’s voice was hoarse from the boy’s grip on his windpipe. “Only people who are too heartless or too thick never cry.”

He knew he was afraid—he could feel the cold tension of it in his limbs—but under the fear he was thinking, thinking.
He’s broader and heavier than me, but not much taller—only an inch or so. He’s awfully fast—but so am I. Could I break that neck hold?

Damon was laughing—the laughter of someone whose idea of a joke is another person’s pain. “Nice one!” he jeered. “New Men cry: is that it? You’ll still be the wonderboy—you’ll still be the hero—even when I’ve reduced you to a sobbing jelly. Why don’t we find out?”

The blow took Nathan in the stomach. He was against the wall—he couldn’t dodge or move with it. His body tried to double over even as he struck out at Damon’s other arm with his left hand while his right managed a hit on the advancing chin. Then everything became very muddled. He’d been in few fights before but both muscles and brain seemed to know instinctively what to do. Concentrate on punching your opponent in his weak spots—don’t notice the blows you take yourself. The knack is to tap into that forgotten core of anger, not the anger of the mind but the rage of blood and bone, the rage left over from the first cornered beast, the first sight of a slain mate, the first hunted thing to turn and fight against impossible odds…Nathan was fourteen against eighteen, lighter and slighter than Damon, but he was fit and focused, strong for his age. Baffled by a fightback he hadn’t expected, Damon grew more vicious, hitting wildly, desperate to hurt, to punish, to crush even as he felt himself losing his edge.

It was over very quickly. Suddenly there were people there, hands pulling them apart, the stern voice of Father Crowley admonishing them. Nathan didn’t feel his bruises twinging until he moved, but he saw the blood running from Damon’s nose and the swelling of his lower lip. He tried not to be too pleased about it. Later he found that his mouth, too, was split, though he couldn’t remember the blow.

“Are you going to tell me what happened?” Father Crowley asked, in the private sanctum of his study.

“I can’t,” Nathan said, uncomfortably. He liked and respected the abbot and didn’t want to let him down.

“Of course not. The moral code of all schoolboys—the eleventh commandment. Thou shalt not tell tales. Among adults, that rule only operates in the gangster world. Interesting, isn’t it? The Italians call it
omertà;
it protected the Mafia for centuries. You might want to think about that.”

“Will I be expelled?” Nathan asked, imagining Annie’s reaction. His status as a scholarship boy had never been mentioned except by Damon, but he knew it made him vulnerable. He had to be not just the best at study and sport, but the best behaved, in order to justify it.

“No. Not this time.” Father Crowley looked grave, as befitted a headmaster under the circumstances. “You have no record of fighting, whereas Damon…Well. Enough said. I will talk to him when the infirmary have finished patching him up. You seem to have given a very good account of yourself.” Was there a glimmer of approval behind his gravitas?