Crewel Lye (27 page)

I considered that as I ran upward, rounding the first turn. For sport, the Knight would not slaughter us right away; he would play with us, making us react, and perhaps be applauded by the audience for an artistic performance. That might give us more leeway. He might even withhold his killing stroke if the points were wrong, waiting for the chance for a better score.

“Threnody!” I called. “Take off your dress!” For my body, which she was using now, still was wearing the brown dress I had donned at Threnody's house. It was soiled and torn, but represented a fair quantity of material.

“Huh?” she called out as she cut back, causing the Knight to overshoot her position. No points for him on that pass! My well-coordinated body was proving to be a boon to her as she learned how to use it.

“Take it off!” I repeated, still running. I was now head height; soon I'd be high enough to be above the Knight. “Use it to bait him with!”

“I don't understand!” she cried, ducking out of the way again.

There was no time for a detailed explanation. Maybe the mask-helmet Threnody wore prevented her from hearing exactly what I was saying. I would have to make a demonstration.

I struggled out of my own dress as I ran; it was tight on me anyway, in my larger size, despite the tucks I had let out to accommodate my girth. Theoretically, the dress should have expanded with me, and maybe it had, but somehow my extra mass bulged more in proportion. I saw the helmeted heads of the Knights in the audience turn to follow me. Oops--I hadn't thought of that! I wore nothing under the dress and I was one big girl now. My anatomy bobbled all over as I ran. I had tried to keep the proportions the same, but realized belatedly that I should have slimmed them down; mass does make a difference, so that the giant has to have different proportions from the normal person in order to carry his weight conveniently. Now that the dress was off, I was really hanging out.

Well, that couldn't be helped. I had to show Threnody what I meant. “Like this in front of him!” I cried, holding the dress so it formed a swatch of gray to the side. “Make him charge it instead of you!”

Now she understood. She ripped off her brown dress, and I saw the visors of the audience swivel to follow her. It seemed the Knights got a voyeuristic thrill from seeing people disrobe; evidently they never got out of their armor. Not in public, anyway. Strange folk!

Threnody stood naked and held the dress to the side, forming a cape of it. The Knight, who perhaps did not see too well from the saddle with his visor closed, aimed his lance at the dress. Of course the point slid through it, brushing it aside, and Threnody did not have to dive out of the way. Well, she still had to step clear of the horse, but this was an improvement.

“Get him to pass under me!” I cried, stopping at a suitable elevation on the ramp.

Threnody tried. She ran under--but the Knight passed to the side, so I couldn't drop on him. However, we seemed to have a viable program.

The Knight turned and came back--and this time he was on target. As he passed under me, I dropped on him, landing just in front of him on the horse. I could have sworn his visor slits widened as my bare anatomy came up against his faceplate. But my ample posterior was crushing down his arms and lance, interfering with his action. He could hardly have been pleased.

I grabbed the chain around his neck and ripped it off. I had the key! Then I realized that I had a pretty good position here and I tried to haul him off his horse with me. I squirmed around, attempting to pin his arms to his sides, but he turned out to be very strong, and I had only woman's muscles. His hands came up, letting go of the lance, and grasped me with horrible force. In a moment he heaved me from the horse.

I landed partly on my feet, but without balance, and sat down hard. I had a lot of padding in that region, but that landing smarted! It was as if I had been spanked by a giant.

However, I had a victory of sorts, for not only did I have the chain with the key, I had caused the Knight to drop his lance. Threnody was hurrying to pick it up.

“Go up and unlock the gate!” she cried. “I'll fend him off here!”

“You don't know how to use that thing,” I pointed out. “He'll wipe you out with his sword!” Indeed, the Knight was already drawing his great blade. It was dusky black, and reminded me ominously of the evil sword Magician Yang had sent against me.

“But you don't have the muscle for this!” she responded. And she had a point; that lance was one heavy pole. I could see why the Knight was strong; he had to be, to carry his weapons.

Now the Knight charged us both, the terrible sword gleaming wickedly. We both wrestled with the lance, heaving it up--but we were at the end, and the point was at the other end, far distant, and by the time we managed to lift that point, the Knight was upon us. His sword slashed down and lopped off the point of the lance. Again we had to dive out of the way, ignominiously.

“We've got to stop splitting up this way!” Threnody gasped as we got up on either side of the fallen lance.

“We can still use this,” I said, picking up the severed point, which was about half my body length. It was a sword of a sort. “You get the other part.”

She picked it up, finding it more manageable now that it was shorter. The Knight had unwittingly done us a favor. He had helped arm us.

As the Knight charged this time, we attacked him from either side, swinging our sticks at him. He merely lifted his shield to fend me off on the left and slashed down at Threnody's arms on the right. She jerked back, but the sword cut off her left hand. It plopped to the floor, fingers curling spastically.

“Damn you!” she cried as the Knight turned for the next charge, a smear of blood on his blade. She jammed the stump of her wrist into her own side to stop the blood from spurting out, but already that flow was abating as my healing talent manifested. She stooped to pick up the fallen hand. Then, as the Knight advanced, she hurled that hand at his head.

The Knight was one tough fighter, but this startled him. The hand clutched at his visor, one finger poking into an eye-slit. It looked like a distorted spider trying to get inside the helmet. It couldn't get inside, of course. The Knight should have known the separated hand was harmless, but he reacted with remarkable vigor. He halted his steed and grabbed for the hand with his left gauntlet.

I took advantage of his distraction to leap up and spread my gray dress over the entire helmet. I clung, forming a hood of gray material, so that he was blinded. “Get his sword!” I cried.

But already that arm and sword were thrashing about, and Threnody could not get close. So I grabbed for the sword arm myself. My leverage was bad, and when I let go of the hood, it started to slide off. The Knight got a glove up and shoved me violently away, so that I fell on my sore bare bottom again. The dress slid down. Now the Knight could see again and he retained his weapon.

However, Threnody saved the moment. Unable to get near the Knight, she went for the horse. She got her mouth close to an armored ear and yelled, “Booo!”

The horse spooked, naturally enough. It neighed and reared. The Knight fell off and clanked to the floor. Threnody scrambled to fling herself on the extended sword arm, pinning it to the floor, while I made a flying leap for the head.

My weight knocked the helmet from the armored body. It squirted out from under my feet and rolled across the floor. Simultaneously, the body went dead. Threnody was able to wrench the sword away from the abruptly flaccid gauntlet.

I peered into the neck of the armor--and there was nothing. I looked at the separated helmet. It, too, was empty!

There was nothing in this suit of armor. Nothing at all.

Threnody looked at me. “Empty armor?” she asked, bewildered. “But it fought us!”

“It fought without honor,” I said. “We were unarmed. Without honor, the Knights are nothing at all.”

“Then what about all the others, who permitted it?”

We looked out at the audience. Now each Knight there reached up a gauntlet to open his visor. Inside each helmet--was nothing.

“They're all empty!” I breathed. “The Knights are all bodiless!”

“No wonder they never removed their armor,” Threnody said. “Without their armor--” She paused to look at me, realizing the significance of my statement about honor. “They're nothing!”

“Let's get out of here before they decide to do something dishonorable!” I said.

She looked around. “That horse,” she said.

“What about it?”

“It looks familiar.”

“It's buried in armor, just like the Knights,” I protested. “It's probably empty too.”

“No, its hooves show. It's a real horse.”

I walked over to it. The armored horse stood still, waiting for its rider to return. I saw there were metal straps holding its armor together. I unbuckled one at the neck, so as to uncover the head.

Underneath was a real horsehead, no phantom. “What's a live horse doing in a place like this?” I asked.

Threnody, one-handed, removed a portion of the body armor. “It's a ghost horse!” she exclaimed.

Sure enough, there were the chains wrapped about the barrel. “A ghost horse, serving armored ghosts!” I said.

“We killed its master,” she pointed out. “We're entitled to what the Knight had, anything of it we want. The spoils.”

“We'll keep the sword,” I said. “As for the horse--we can free it.”

“Free her,” Threnody said, unbuckling more armor. “She's a mare.”

“A knight-mare,” I said, realizing the manner in which this made sense. “Let's ride her up the ramp and out--and let her go on the surface.”

“Agreed. We owe her that. We won the match when she spooked.”

And Threnody had been the one to think of that ploy. I would remember that.

We got the rest of the armor off while the assembled Knights watched emptily, evincing no emotion. It seemed they did honor the rest of their deal. We had won; we were free. And there would be no more cowfolk sacrifices, and the grazing range would be expanded. We had done our part for the creatures who had helped us. That pleased me.

I mounted the ghost mare. “Don't forget my hand,” I reminded Threnody.

She picked up the fallen hand and stuck it to her wrist, which had stopped bleeding and started to heal over. At first she placed it backward, but she corrected that immediately. “I'll walk,” she decided. “I can't ride while holding this together.”

“It won't take long to re-attach, but it will be weak for an hour or so,” I advised her.

So I guided the mare up the ramp, carefully, while Threnody walked behind, holding my hand. The walk became slightly nervous business at the height, but the knight-mare was sure-footed, and we reached the gate without misstep. That was just as well. The assembled Knights watched us with their empty faces, still making no move to stop us.

“Those hollow men are eerie,” Threnody muttered.

I dismounted and took the key to the lock. It worked, and the gate swung open. We moved through, then I returned to lock the gate behind us. I flung the key through, so that it dropped to the arena below; after all, it belonged to the Knights, and we had no intention of returning.

We stood in a pleasant, open forest of mixed types of trees--beeches, sandalwoods, and other shore types, which indicated there was a lake nearby. There were a number of fruit and nut trees. We could travel through this very comfortably.

“Well, ghost horse,” I said. “You're on your own now.”

The mare looked at me. She rattled her chains inquiringly.

“You're free,” I said. “Go romp through the wilderness.”

She just stood there and gazed at me from beneath long equine lashes. She had lovely dark eyes, even for a horse, though her coat was light.

“She doesn't understand,” Threnody said, wiggling the fingers of her left hand, which was now firmly attached and improving rapidly. Then she removed her bovine mask.

“Nonsense!” I said. “Pook understands every word I say. I'm sure Peek does, too.”

“Peek?”

“Look at her eyes!”

Indeed, the mare was peeking soulfully at us. Whoever says animals don't have souls is crazy.

“She's peeking,” Threnody agreed. “Maybe she does understand. But she may be tame. She could have been raised in captivity by the Knights; she's a knight-mare.”

“You know, Pook could still be waiting for us among the artis-trees,” I said, realizing. “Peek's a ghost mare. Do you think--?”

“You women are always matchmaking!” she said.

“And you men are always trying to avoid commitment!” I retorted. Then we both laughed, to the mare's confusion.

So we decided to take Peek back to the artis-forest to meet Pook. After that, it would be up to them. If Peek was nervous about going out alone, Pook could guide her.

I reduced myself to normal size, returned my head to human, and dissipated my extra mass. Peek watched all this with equine astonishment. Then we found a toga tree that enabled us to cover our immodesty with togas. I took a blue one, and Threnody a red one. Peek shook her head, knowing we had the colors reversed; even animals knew that blue was for boys and red for girls. I patted her neck. “It's complicated to explain,” I said.

I rode Peek north, while Threnody walked; her big barbarian body could keep the pace much better than my feminine one could. Soon we reached the dead tree--and there was Pook, faithfully waiting. He gave a glad neigh as he spied us--then did a double take as he spied Peek.

I introduced them. “Pook, this is Peek. She helped us escape the underworld. Peek, this is Pook, my friend.”

The two ghost horses sniffed noses cautiously. They rattled their chains, making a kind of music together. They decided they liked each other.

“If only it were that easy for human folk,” Threnody said somewhat wistfully.

“If you two want to trot elsewhere, you're welcome,” I told Pook. “Peek's not sure she's ready for the wilderness, but you can show her.”

The two nickered at each other and decided to stay. “Does that mean we can both ride?” I asked, pleased. It turned out that it did.

So I took Pook and Threnody rode Peek, and we bore south. In the evening we stopped and foraged and grazed, as the case might be. “Hey, look at this!” Threnody called.