The Golden Shield of IBF (22 page)

“Let’s just fight,” Gar’Ath suggested.

“Oh, you wanna hurt me, huh?”

Gar’Ath laughed, raised his sword to a guard position and waited.

Garrison had been practicing.

Garrison charged clumsily, thrashing through an awkward, downward hacking motion, Gar’Ath waiting to intercept with a casual flick of the wrist and possibly disarm him. Garrison drew his blade rearward at the last second, Gar’Ath parrying nothing but air. Garrison’s blade was already in motion again, its flat striking Gar’Ath’s, deflecting Gar’Ath’s parry.

Garrison wheeled right, a full circle, his blade angled downward, blocking Gar’Ath’s recovering blade from inside his guard. Garrison’s left fist snapped upward, lightly tapping Gar’Ath on the tip of the chin. At the same time, Garrison shoved against Gar’Ath, knocking him slightly off balance.

As Gar’Ath dodged rearward, Garrison wheeled once more, his sword arcing toward a dead stop (he hoped) inches from Gar’Ath’s throat. Gar’Ath wheeled, his sword in both hands, blocking Garrison’s blade, circling round it, flicking upward.

Garrison was disarmed.

Gar’Ath stayed the tip of his blade, poised an inch away from Garrison’s forehead.

“I was getting a little carried away,” Garrison admitted sheepishly.

“You’re getting considerably better, Champion. You have the makings of a fine hand with the blade.” Gar’Ath lowered his sword. “Unfortunately, we may not have the time that we’ll require in order to teach you all that you’ll need to know.”

It was a sobering thought, and Garrison nodded his agreement to it. Gar’Ath’s blade snatched up Garrison’s loaner, the sword sailing easily through the air and Garrison caught it at the hilt. “What if I hadn’t been able to catch it?”

“You would have cut yourself quite badly, you would, Champion. And, more importantly, I’d have felt terribly embarrassed.”

Garrison shook his sword at Gar’Ath as if he were going to attack again, laughed instead and said, “Gosh, we wouldn’t have wanted you to be embarrassed because I cut myself!” Garrison shook his arms to loosen his muscles. “Let’s call it a day, huh.” It wasn’t that he was tired, but he saw Swan approaching, crossing the grassy expanse toward them.

Gar’Ath glanced in Swan’s direction as well, looked at Garrison and winked. “It’s a bit tired I am, too, Champion. On the morrow, then?”

“Same time, same channel, buddy.”

Gar’Ath nodded, walking over to his corner and donning his shirt almost a little too quickly. Gar’Ath seemed easily embarrassed around women, one drop-dead gorgeous woman in particular. Her name was Mitan and it was obvious that Gar’Ath was nuts about her, and she about him, obvious to everyone except Gar’Ath.

Or maybe it was too obvious to him. Garrison had seen guys run scared when they realized there was something serious going on with a woman. Mitan was K’Ur’Mir, Garrison had learned, meaning that a union between Gar’Ath and Mitan would be comparable to a commoner marrying into the British Royal Family.

“Be seeing you,” Gar’Ath called out, buckling on his sword as he went.

Garrison shot him a wave.

As Gar’Ath made his way toward the trees, Swan and Gar’Ath crossed paths, stopped to talk for a moment. Gar’Ath s body language graphically revealed his shyness, his desire to walk on and escape the conversation. Garrison found himself smiling.

Gar’Ath escaped.

Swan continued on her way, Garrison’s eyes on her. Her hair was loosely arranged in soft waves, the sides drawn back from her face, caught up at the crown of her head. She wore an ankle-length dress of pale blue satin or a similar material. White petticoats were visible beneath its hem as her fingertips clutched to her skirt, raised it to run to him. At its rounded neckline and the cuffs of its three-quarter sleeves were narrow ribbons of white lace trim.

Garrison saw no weapon, but knew that her dagger would be bound to her leg beneath her skirts.

She came into his arms in a rush. Garrison picked her up, cradling her against his chest, and kissed her hard on the mouth. “Put me down, please.” But her smile said otherwise. He held her. “Please?”

“And what will you do for me if I do?”

“What would you like?”

“Well, we can’t do that just yet. Make an alternate suggestion, Swan.”

Swan seemed to consider this for several seconds, then told him, “I could stay in your arms like this until your muscles become numb. I know that I don’t weigh much, but I’m heavier than a feather. You would tire eventually.”

“Never! Anyway, I was more interested in a bribe than a threat. So think of something interesting.” He bounced her in his arms like a child, and she laughed like one, her hands clutching his shoulders. “Come on! Let’s hear it!”

“I’ll kiss you and kiss you and kiss you until—”

“Sounds like a deal to me, darling.” Garrison set her down, drew her into his arms and kissed her hard.

After a long time which wasn’t time enough, they walked together hand in hand toward the summit from beneath which the waterfall spilled. When they looked toward what Garrison mentally labeled the west—the sun set in that part of Creath—before them stretched higher and higher foothills, and snow-covered mountains beyond. A segment of the vast Arba’Il’Tac was also visible, vanishing within the peaks. The sight of the plateau’s unremitting stone sent a shiver of memory along Garrison’s spine.

To what Garrison instinctively considered the north and east lay the sea. Woroc’Il’Lod’s enormity was, at first, hard for him to comprehend. Erg’Ran had shown him a map which looked familiarly like a standard projection for a flat surface map of the Earth, except for the sizes, shapes and positions of the continents and the almost total absence of islands. As he’d already known, there was but one continent here, but that one more like a series of continents interconnected by vast land bridges. There was only one true island chain, located what seemed to be a quarter of the planet’s circumference from the Land to the north, off Edge Land.

Men of science and letters such as Erg’Ran had long known that Creath was round, although the planet had never been circumnavigated. It was just as the thinkers of Classical Greece had known the true shape of the Earth two millennia before Columbus or Magellan embarked upon their historic voyages. There had never been, however, nor likely would be a circumnavigation of Creath for two reasons: the planet’s land masses were all known, through the use of magic and the second-sight; and although there was no fear of “falling off” the edge of the world, in actuality sea creatures did wait to destroy ships and devour those foolish enough to be aboard them.

The only race of seafarers anywhere in Creath, according to Erg’Ran, was to be found on the island chain, its inhabitants the Gle’Ur’Gya. The Gle’Ur’Gya rarely interacted with the folk of the Land. From Erg’Ran s description of them, if they shared a common evolutionary heritage at all, the Gle’Ur’Gya were as genetically dissimilar to the inhabitants of the Land as were the more esoteric forms of Australian fauna to the general run of terrestrial species.

Garrison could fault no one for avoiding the vast global ocean of which he was able to glimpse only the most frigid part.

Woroc’Il’Lod’s tidal surges were beyond anything Garrison had ever considered possible. Once, as a child, his family unwittingly found itself in the path of a hurricane. Despite the intervening years, Garrison’s recollection of the awesome height and force with which the Atlantic pounded against the Florida coast had not dimmed. Along the coasts of Creath, such was normal. He’d seen this with his own eyes over the last several days, from this very vantage point he shared with Swan. Erg’Ran had told him that, at certain periods of the year, there were waves of incredible proportions which moved in cyclonic rotation, floating hurricane-like, as Garrison referenced it, over the surface of the ocean. This occurred when Creath s two moons crossed orbital paths and was a result of their combined gravitational effect, Garrison presumed.

“We’ll be out there soon,” Garrison observed.

Swan held to him more tightly. “I wish that my magic could carry us all across it. But in order to accomplish that, I would have virtually none remaining when we reached shore. And I’ll need magic there.”

“Let me ask you something,” Garrison began. The breeze was stiffening a little as the sun declined. He folded her more closely in his arms. “This place. How does it work?”

Swan seemed to consider his words for several seconds, then responded, “You are wondering why we are safe here.”

“I can accept the fact that the magic from the dead K’Ur’Mir protects this spot. Erg’Ran told me about it the other evening. He’d told Gar’Ath how that came to be, how he lost his foot. Spooky. And the other night he told me, said I had a right to know. But how come there isn’t an army of your mother’s goons waiting just outside the gates for us, laying siege?”

“It wouldn’t do my mother any good, Al’An. It’s not just the keep and the courtyard and the walls which enjoy the protection of the spells cast by the dying K’Ur’Mir, it’s the surrounding area, for many, many lancethrows in all directions, including the sea.”

“Fine, then why isn’t there an armada waiting offshore to intercept us?” Garrison didn’t know, for fact, that there wouldn’t be.

Evidently, Swan was having difficulty with the word “armada” and Garrison explained. “It’s a fleet of ships for war.” Telling her about the Spanish Armada in 1588 wouldn’t have done much good, he supposed.

“My mother has few ships, Al’An, only those which ply the coastal waters. There is no such thing here as an armada.”

“So all we have to worry about between this coast and the far coast is ice dragons.”

“And the other sea monsters, yes.”

Garrison blinked. “Other sea monsters?”

“I told you, Al’An, that my mother brought the ice dragons out of their great sleep? But there were always other creatures inhabiting the great ocean, some of them in Woroc’Il’Lod.”

“So, monsters, but no bad guys.”

Swan paused before responding. “The Gle’Ur’Gya? Some of their number are—” Garrison realized that she was searching for a word. Then, as if the lightbulb suddenly went on in a cartoon, she said, “Pirates! Some of the Gle’Ur’Gya attack coastal ships, my mother’s these days. Before my mother’s rule, when there was coastal trade, the Gle’Ur’Gya were more active.”

Garrison shrugged his eyebrows. “At least these guys—the Gle’Ur’Gya—aren’t on your mom’s side. That’s something, I guess. If we meet up with any, maybe we can get them on our side.”

“That would be wonderful, because they are very great fighters, especially the pirates.”

“Okay, so all we have to worry about between here and Edge Land is pirates and sea monsters and ice dragons. And, on the plus side, we might be able to get the pirates to help us in the battle.” Garrison surmised that he really was going nuts...

* * *

The days at the summer palace were always warm and bright, nary a cloud in the sky. The weather was magically “programmed” for rain every day just before dawn, in order that the plants and flowers would get the moisture they required. There’d be no need to have The Weather Channel in a basic cable package here. He told that to Swan, then had to explain about basic cable which led to a short dissertation on Marconi and the invention of the wireless.

At night, the skies above the summer palace and its environs were always clear and the stars were always sparkling and beautiful. He sat beneath them with Swan, on the keep steps, a good dinner in his stomach, a cup of wine beside him, a cigarette lit in his left hand from a continuously full pack.

It was magic responsible for that full pack, magic responsible for the perfection of the summer palace. And magic, he knew, was the reason that he was here, alive.

“Tell me,” Garrison almost whispered, “how you saved my life.”

Swan leaned her head against his chest, her voice low. “I saw what was about to happen, with the second-sight.”

“And you intervened. How?”

Swan turned her face up toward him. “I couldn’t let you die, Al’An. You would not have been here if it were not for me, nor would you have fought the winged beast were it not for me. That was the most formidable of the creatures my mother raised up to destroy us, which meant that she knew that you were the Champion, and had to destroy you.”

“Are those the only reasons?” Garrison asked her, his eyes leaving hers, focusing on the glowing tip of his cigarette, its pinpoint of light like a star held in the hand.

“I couldn’t lose you, Al’An. I knew from the first moment that I saw you that...”

Garrison kissed the tip of her nose. It was a very pretty nose. “When we were sitting in that little snack shop at the con, I was realizing that I loved you. Does that help with saying it?”

“Yes.”

“So,” he said, clearing his throat, “you just did what then?”

“I wasn’t certain how to bring the winged beast softly to the ground so that you would not die. I had never done something like that, had never read a spell for that. But I did know a spell for shifting the life energy—”

“The soul? The mind?”

Swan seemed to ponder his words, then answered, “We think of things in different ways, but they’re the same. I knew that I could take the life that was in you, the essence of you, and transfer it to something else, another living creature. And I could return it to your body. Healing your body was merely the acceleration of natural processes, ordinary magic. We’ve spoken of this.”

“Yes,” he nodded.

“But if your life energy left your body at the moment of death, it would be irretrievable. You never died, Al’An. I know this has worried you. Your body was grievously injured, moreso than you would ever want to know. But the body can be made to heal itself. I kept your life energy in the bird until I was certain that I could restore your body and had restored it enough that it would hold your life energy and not surrender you to death. That took very little time. The bones in your chest were crushed, and had penetrated your heart and your lungs. I commanded the bones to return to their original position and shape. They still had to heal, of course. I ordered your lungs to seal, so that air could enter and leave. Your heart would heal, but it had ceased to beat.”