The Golden Shield of IBF (7 page)

“We are not dead, Al’An.”

“Where are we, Swan?”

“Creath.”

“Where is Creath?”

Swan did not answer him, merely stood there, wrapped within her cape, its hood so obscuring her face that he could not read her expression.

The snow felt like snow, the air smelled like air. Garrison rationalized a scenario. Somehow, when the explosion came, he was knocked out, near death (unless he was really dead). The bright light had been the same light people talked about in near-death experiences. If he wasn’t dead, then they had been kidnapped while unconscious, drugged perhaps, abandoned here for some obscure reason. One of his .45s was still in its shoulder holster, the other in the waistband of his pants, where he’d placed it when he tackled William Brownwood. From their heft, the pistols were still loaded. He could check them in greater detail in a little while. His third pistol and his knives were where they belonged.

Garrison reached for his cell phone. “Where’s my cell phone?”

“Cell phone?”

“The thing I was talking into,” Garrison rephrased.

“Your magical advisor? You flung your magical advisor to the floor as you joined battle with your foeman there in the great hall through which all who entered passed.”

“No matter. In the mountains like this, we’re probably nowhere near a cell, anyway. So, tell me what’s up.”

Swan’s right arm emerged from beneath her cape and she gestured toward the cloudy sky. “That is up. Are you well, Al’An? Was your head injured?”

“No, I knew which way up was, Swan. That’s not what I meant.”

“Then, you were testing me?”

“No, that’s not it. What I meant to say was that I wanted you to tell me where we are and what’s happened, if you know.”

“Of course I know,” Swan answered defensively, moving closer beside him. He could see her face quite clearly now beneath the folds of her hood. There was nothing but honesty there, honesty and loveliness. “You were about to be killed by the grenade bomb.” Garrison let her English usage slide. “I summoned all of the magical energy that I could, while reciting backwards the incantation which brought me to your world from mine originally. At the same time that the grenade bomb was about to release its energy, and perhaps kill you, I brought us here. And there is probably no reason to be afraid for Alicia and Gardner and Brenda the half-cat, half-female. Before my mother’s minions attacked and the Mist of Oblivion was summoned to devour my castle and all life within it, I chanced upon a spell useful in combating the energy force of a volcano. I thought that it was a clever spell and committed it to memory. I cast that spell over the grenade bomb. In the moment that my magic took us from the great hall through which all who entered passed, the grenade bomb exploded. I am certain that the spell worked. But, I could not be sure beforehand, which is why I brought us here at that moment.”

Garrison frisked his pockets, found his cigarettes and his lighter. This was nuts. He placed a cigarette between his lips. His hands shook with the cold and the lighter didn’t work the first time. As he made to roll the striking wheel again, his cigarette lit itself and he heard Swan laugh. “That is the easiest kind of magic. The energy is all around us; I merely direct it.”

Slowly, Garrison said, “This is Creath.”

“Of course it is!”

“And this magic of yours can bring us back to Atlanta?”

“Not now,” Swan responded, shaking her head. “You see, Al’An, magic is measured by quality and quantity. It is something which can be temporarily exhausted and then must renew itself.”

“You just lit my cigarette with magic,” Garrison insisted, amazed that he said such a thing.

Swan smiled indulgently. “If you run for only a short distance, do you have trouble breathing afterward?”

“No. Even though I’m smoking, I don’t do it very often and I take health and fitness very—What’s running have to do with magic?”

“If you run very rapidly over a great distance, your breathing does not immediately return to the way that it was before you began to run.”

“Obviously. So what?”

Swan smiled, triumphantly this time, as if she’d just taught him the meaning behind Einstein’s theory of relativity. “That’s how magic works, Al’An. The harder the magic, the longer it takes for the magic to return to the way it was before it was used. Just like running long and fast. But even after running long and fast, it is usually possible to take a few steps, and sometimes it is better to walk while breathing becomes normal again. Giving fire to the end of your cigarette, or anything like that is just a tiny step and simple to do, requiring virtually no energy at all.”

“So, we can’t go back.”

“It will be a day or longer for my magical energy to be sufficiently renewed. Bringing the two of us to Creath consumed more magic than when I alone left Creath to go to your world. And, anyway, I need you to be my Champion, to fight beside me with the Company of Mir against the Horde of Koth and my mother’s evil magic. That will take some time.”

“Look,” Garrison began. “I have—” Before saying another word to Swan, it dawned on him to question himself concerning what he really did have in his world, assuming again that he really wasn’t dead or dreaming and actually had been brought to Creath. He had a job, one that he was good at (usually, at least), an important job that gave him a great deal of satisfaction, but not the job he wanted. Ever since high school, he’d been aching to get fantasy or science fiction published and he had never gotten anything finished to the point where he could even hope for a form rejection letter. Garrison had boxes of unwritten stories and novels, always jumping from one idea to the next.

The rest of his life wasn’t that much more goal oriented, so far. At the insistence of his parents, after college he got a law degree. But Alan Garrison had no interest at all in being an attorney. The FBI was head-hunting healthy guys with law degrees and the next thing Garrison knew, he was a recruit under the hot sun at Quantico.

He could have used some of that hot sun in this place; Garrison’s entire body was shaking now, shivering in his unlined bomber jacket with nothing but a shoulder holster, a T-shirt and his body armor underneath. Instead of asking Swan to find some way to take him back to his world, Alan Garrison bit the bullet and asked, “Is all of Creath cold like this?”

“In the winter season, yes, this part of Creath, all of the inhabited part, is cold. But it is hot in the summer, hot like Atlanta.”

“Is there someplace we can go, something we could do to escape the cold?”

Swan’s brow knitted with thought for a moment. “I don’t have sufficient magical energy yet to cast a place-shifting spell. And my castle has ceased to exist because of the Mist of Oblivion. But—”

Swan’s hands appeared from beneath her cape. She stepped toward him, so close now that their bodies almost touched, her cape falling fully open. She raised her hands to the cowl of her hood, then swept them back and down along her sides to her cape’s hem, crouching so low that she was almost kneeling.

Swan rose to her full height. Her fingers seemed to vibrate slightly as she tented them together. Swan raised her clasped hands toward him, over him. He felt her hands touch at the crown of his head, move back and down along the sides of his head, his neck, along his shoulders, starting down along his arms, mimicking how she had swept her hands over her own body.

A cape began to enshroud Alan Garrison, from a deeply cowled hood over his head to the hem at his ankles. And warmth spread through him. “Thank you,” Garrison told her.

“It is a very manly greatcape, not trimmed with fur like mine, Al’An. It looks well on you. Would you like a different color other than brown?”

“Brown’s fine,” Alan Garrison reassured her. He decided that he could try to help Swan with this champion thing that she wanted him to do, for a day or so at least, until her magic was strong enough to send him back. Or he could think of an excuse to stay for a while longer...

It was nearly full darkness. The light from the twin moons would not penetrate the low, dense overcast this night. But the whiteness of the fresh snow helped to diffuse the light from the magical globe which the Enchantress had given to him. Erg’Ran could see quite well enough to keep to the trail. In daylight, the globe seemed like an ordinary ball of heavy glass, but as night fell, it began to glow, stronger the darker the night became.

Erg’Ran slowed his dark brown mare’s pace along the once well-used road leading toward the Castle of the Virgin Enchantress, reined back so that Gar’Ath’s mount would come abreast of him.

Erg’Ran had to see the devastation for himself. He had to know for certain that the Mist of Oblivion had totally consumed the massive structure where Swan had lived alone for so long, in willing exile from her mother’s residence at Barad’Il’Koth.

As he drew guidance from the globe’s light, so did Erg’Ran draw faith from it, faith that somehow the Virgin Enchantress still lived. If she did not, how could her magic still power the globe which lit their way?

Gar’Ath drew up beside him. “Is there something wrong, old friend?” Gar’Ath tossed back the hood of his cloak, his dark hair falling free of the hood and across his shoulders. In the globe’s light through the more heavily falling snow, Erg’Ran could see the younger man’s face quite clearly. The smile seemed forced, but genuine; considering the circumstances this night, it was the only sort of smile that could be possible.

“We are near to leaving the wood, and from the boundary we should be able to confirm whether or not the Mist of Oblivion accomplished the Queen Sorceress’s foul work. If I know the workings of her evil heart, there will be a scouting party of the Horde—at the very least—lying in wait lest we should hear of the castle’s destruction and go in search of the Virgin Enchantress.”

“Then we fall right into their plan, old friend. Yet, there’s no choice, I think. I am with you that we must know the Virgin Enchantress’s fate. And, if the castle is, indeed, vanished from the universe, she may still live.”

“We cannot give up hope, Gar’Ath.”

“My soul and my sword are with you, as always, old friend, however we end.”

“I know that, lad. I rely on them both.”

“Should I scout ahead, do you think then, Erg’Ran? One man will be less noticed than seven, I’d wager. If I come up from the far side of the plateau and stay near the rock walls, I’ll have a better chance of seeing any of the Horde before they should see me. They are predictable, these bastard foemen we fight. They will expect us to come from the wood.”

“Take no chances, if you do go ahead, Gar’Ath. Your plan seems a good one. But we cannot afford to lose you, tonight or ever if we are to take the fight to Barad’Il’Koth.” And Erg’Ran touched his clenched fist to his forehead, invoking the courage of Mir at the thought of the evil stronghold of the Queen Sorceress.

“If I ride around to the far side, you and the others should be only a short while behind me when I get there.”

“We will be there, lad.”

“I’ll be waiting then!” Gar’Ath’s eyes were younger, stronger. He would not need the globe’s light to guide him through the wood.

Gar’Ath’s mount veered off the path and into the darkness.

Erg’Ran called after him hoarsely, “Not through the wood, lad! Not at night!”

But, Gar’Ath was gone, either out of earshot or choosing to ignore the warning. Since the Horde of Koth swept through the wood, all living things that remained were creatures of darkness. They might not have the courage to attack a company of seven men, or even six; but one man who strayed from the path might be too tempting for the foul beasts to resist. Erg’Ran touched his clenched fist to his forehead once again, asking the courage of Mir to be with Gar’Ath.

Swan made light appear from her left hand, to guide them through the swirling gloom: her right hand lay in the crook of Al’An’s elbow. His right hand grasped one of his weapons. The wind blew more strongly and the snow fell more rapidly than before. The snow piled up in ever deeper drifts the nearer they approached to the boundary with the wood.

Once there, she would search for the track that had been the road, the track over which she had lately ridden to the millers hut on her strongly built little white horse. The gentle creature was devoured, of course, when the Mist of Oblivion enveloped the castle and all within it.

Upon reaching the wood, Al’An and she could spend the rest of the night with some protection from the cold and wind and snow. By morning, her magic would be stronger, adequate at least to cast a place-shifting spell that would bring them to the encampment behind the Falls of Mir. And adequate to get them out of there quickly if need be. There was a strong chance that the encampment had already been attacked, or that Erg’Ran, learning of Swan’s mother’s use of the Mist of Oblivion, had wisely decided to break camp and go deeper into hiding. She would gamble on finding her compatriots in the Company of Mir, but only when she was strong enough should her worst fears prove out.

It was probable that her magical energy was sufficiently restored to place-shift them at this very moment. Yet if she did so, her magic would be too depleted to whisk them away again to safety should the encampment have been overrun, occupied by the Horde of Koth. That she could not risk.

She would wait.

Al’An, ready for danger as best he could be and telling her, “I have a very good reading knowledge of swords, but have never used one. You keep the sword,” held one of his pistols ready still. When she had asked if it were a laser pistol, he told her, “Hardly. Aren’t any laser pistols for real yet. This is the next best thing, a SIG P-220 .45 loaded with Federal Hydra-Shoks. Rest easy.” He had winked his eye; it was most charming. Swan hoped that he would do so again.

Swan did not wish to dishearten him, but a mechanical device could be bewitched much more easily than a sword, which was all but impossible to be cast upon, even by means of magic as powerful as her mother’s. Swan mentioned nothing at all of that to Al’An for the moment.

“Once we’re in the forest, what next, Swan?”

“I must locate the track which leads to the miller’s hut, Al’An.”