The Green Knight (Space Lore Book 1) (30 page)

The monitors changed views every three seconds on an automated loop. Every feed of the battle showed the same thing, though: soldiers in space armor—from both armies—saved from the wreckage of the ships they had been on and now hoping upon hope to be rescued as they floated in space. In one instant, a laser cannon sent a blast from an Athens Destroyer. In the next instant, a dozen men in space armor were no longer there. No part of their suit remained. No part of their bodies. Every single bit of them was vaporized by a blast that hadn’t even been intended for them but had been targeting a Solar Carrier.

The view changed again.

A trio of Solar Carriers was targeting a single destroyer, which was already racked with holes and structural failures. As the flagship exploded into fragments, the blasts engulfed the Vonnegan troopers who had managed to escape the vessel. The deliverance they had achieved for themselves was quickly extinguished and their destinies caught up with them once and for all.

The screen changed views again.

“This is hopeless.”

Traskk agreed with a soft growl. Baldwin closed his eyes and exhaled.

Fastolf leaned with his back against the wall and tried to take a sip from the flask he kept hidden in his pocket. Finding it empty, he tossed the intricately designed container to the ground.

“I stole that from a guy eight years ago,” he said. “Pompous fool must have paid dearly for it.”

For no better reason than that it was there, Fastolf withdrew his blaster and shot the flask. A line of laser fire erupted from his weapon, hitting the expensive container and deflecting into the air. He immediately cringed when he realized the exquisite object was coated in protective metal. Seeing the laser streak away, he expected Morgan to come after him with closed fists.

She stared at the singed flask, then at Fastolf’s blaster, then back at the flask.

“Morgan, I’m,” Fastolf started to say, but instead of killing him, she laughed and patted him on the back.

As she ran toward the primary control room door, Traskk right behind her, she yelled, “If this works, not only will I not kill you. I’ll buy you a drink.”

66

Vere ignored the Green Knight, who still had his back against the cave wall, and took another step into the depths of the Green Chapel.

“Galen?” she said again.

She saw an outline, only a few feet deeper into the shadows. Someone waiting in the darkness. Someone who had been there the entire time, watching the proceedings between herself and the knight. With her blaster still on the rock where she had been prepared to have her head chopped off, there wasn’t enough light to make out a face.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, somehow sure it was him even though she hadn’t heard his voice or seen him since before leaving Edsall Dark.

“It’s good to see you,” he said, his voice soft and calm. “I’ve missed you.”

“Where have you been?”

“I’ve been here,” he said, almost in a whisper. She could hear the same amused smile in his voice that had been there every day when, as kids, they had explored this exact cave.

“That’s not true. It can’t be.” When he didn’t say anything, she added, “You would have needed food and water.”

“And to think you accused your father of being too practical!”

“It’s not funny. You’re not making any sense. People would have seen you if you’d been here.”

“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe not. I came here six years ago. I’m here now. In between, I’ve seen a lot of things I never knew about. Does anything else matter?”

“What are you talking about?”

She took another step forward, within arm’s reach of him. When she extended her hands, however, the happiness in his voice disappeared: “Please, don’t touch me.”

She stopped, cocked her head to one side, then said, “You were the one who left me. Not the other way around. I’m the one who should be mad.”

She sat down beside him, the space between them big enough for another person to squeeze in between.

If she could have ignored the war that was surely still being waged above her planet, if she could have forgotten that two of her best friends were dead, she might have been able to trick herself into believing it was like old times. She was with the one person she had loved, in the one place they had explored and talked more than any other. Then, life had seemed incredibly simple.

“Galen?”

“Yes.”

“Did you send the Green Knight?”

“You know I did.”

“Why?”

“I had to make sure you came back home. It was the only way I knew how.”

She opened her mouth to tell him she never would have left in the first place if he hadn’t chosen the Word over love. A stupid calling over everything they had! Occulus would have frowned at such a remark, though. She knew that much. Instead, she asked who he was.

Galen looked directly into her eyes. “The Green Knight, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“Bertilak de Hautdesert,” he said.

“Is that name supposed to mean something to me?”

Galen shrugged. When he saw she needed a better explanation, he said, “He fought in the Haiwan Wars.”

“Those wars took place a thousand years ago.”

“I know.”

When she only shook her head in annoyance, he pointed to where the Green Knight was still standing. But when she turned and looked, even though he was standing closer to the cave’s entrance than either Vere or Galen, and even though the ion cell from her blaster offered a modicum of light, she could barely make out the giant’s form in the shadows. The harder she squinted, the more she couldn’t differentiate between the Green Knight and the rock and moss. As she watched, more of the Green Knight blended in with the cave, until only his helmet and axe could be made out. A moment later, even these faded into the darkness of the cave. She closed her eyes for a moment to let them refocus, but when she looked again there was no distinction at all between the rocks and the knight. They were one and the same.

“I don’t understand,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady.

“I made a deal with Mortimous.”

She cringed and looked at him with concern. “Galen, he’s been dead since before we were born.”

“I made a deal with him.”

“You aren’t making any sense. A dead magician brought a dead warrior back to life?”

She saw his eyes gleam with the same sense of wonderment he had often possessed when they were kids.

“Vere, you wouldn’t believe the things I’ve seen.”

“In the Word?” she said, bitterly.

He nodded. “Not
in
the Word;
because
of it. The Word isn’t a thing, it’s an idea. There is so much more to life than what we can see.” He smiled. “Some beautiful things. Some things misunderstood. Some pain and suffering even. But all of it amazing in one way or another. All of it miraculous if you look at it with open eyes.”

She sneered and said, “You left everyone you knew to seek some mystical nonsense rather than enjoy the life that was right in front of you?”

“No, Vere. It didn’t have anything to do with that. I left because it was my calling. It was what I had to do. If I hadn’t, no matter how happy I would have otherwise been, a part of me would have always known I was missing out on my destiny.”

“Your destiny?” she laughed.

“Destiny. Fate. Whatever you want to call it. My higher calling.”

“You were barely old enough to fly a starship. You’d never explored the galaxy. You spent every day with me in these caves! Yet, you knew your calling?”

“Yes.”

He answered in the same assured and confident way he always had when they were younger. It was one of the things she had loved about him then. Now, though, it made her shoulders clench, made the blood rush to her head.

“I loved you,” he said. “I still do. I always will. But I knew I was too curious to be satisfied with my place in life.” When she started to say something, he added, “Curious in a way that exploring caves wouldn’t have satisfied. Do you remember how many times I asked my parents or your parents a question and they didn’t have a good answer?”

“I remember.”

And she did. Everywhere they went, Galen had asked the adults questions that he never got decent answers to.
Why was the universe created? How was it created? What was his place in it?
She remembered how matter-of-factly he asked the questions, thinking the adults would know everything there was to know. She remembered the way his brows furrowed each time his parents or her parents had rubbed his hair and told him to do his homework and to let the adults worry about such things.

“Well, I’m learning those answers now,” he said. “I have been for the past six years. It has been extraordinary.”

“Extraordinary? You haven’t done anything. You’ve been in a cave.”

“In a way, yes.”

“In a way? Stop talking in riddles. You either have or you haven’t.”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Vere. The galaxy isn’t that simple. There is more, much more, to the galaxy than you or I ever realized.”

“Where are your wacko buddies in the Word? Are they getting answers too?”

“I told you: the Word isn’t a thing, it’s an idea. There is no organization. No one recruited me. It was just a calling. I have seen figures from a distance, some familiar, some not. I have had many long discussions with Mortimous, although I admit I always feel like I have even more questions than I started with after I’ve spoken with him.”

“He’s dead, Galen. He’s been dead for a long time.”

“I can assure you, I spoke with him just—” He paused, his eyes squinting in that way they always had when he was concentrating. “I’m not sure, maybe a day ago, maybe a week ago. Time doesn’t seem to work for me the way it used to.”

“And you made a deal with him? With a dead magician?”

Galen chuckled, ignoring her mocking tone. “He’s not dead. He’s not a magician, either. And,” he added with a contented grin, “you need to let go of your anger. I didn’t stop loving you just because there was something more I had to do with my life. I never stopped loving you. Not then, not now.”

She reached her hand out to touch his knee but he shied away until she withdrew it.

“You don’t understand,” he said. “All I wanted was to lead a better life, to find answers to all the questions that kept me up at night so I didn’t feel so lost all the time.”

“Lost, like I am?”

He smiled. “You aren’t lost. You’re here.”

“I’ve felt lost. I only left because—”

“Shh, you’re here now.”

They had spent the majority of their childhood days in this cave and the surrounding hills and tunnels. Exploring, talking, being free. She still didn’t understand how he could give that up so easily.

“It wasn’t easy,” he said as if reading her mind. “But it was something I had to do.” And then he smiled, pitifully, adding, “Like you coming here to face the Green Knight wasn’t easy, but it was something you had to do.”

She looked over to where the Green Knight had been. If there was any remnant of him, she couldn’t see it. It was as if his body and armor had turned to moss and become part of the cave.

“I still don’t know how I didn’t kill him back in Eastcheap.”

“You can’t kill the Green Knight. He wasn’t alive when you saw him. Mortimous simply brought back his form. You could have chopped his head off twenty times and twenty times he would have put it back atop his shoulders.”

“Mortimous didn’t do anything. That crazy old man has been dead for decades.”

There was an audible sound of amusement and satisfaction in Galen’s voice when he said, “He’s as dead as the Green Knight then, I guess.”

“I don’t understand. Mortimous claimed to be a magician, a soothsayer.”

“He didn’t claim to be any of that. Those were the things people called him. All he ever claimed to be was a man seeking truth in the galaxy.

“I don’t understand,” she said again.

“Maybe you will some day.” Then, smiling, he asked, “If you could describe your life in one word, what would it be?”

“I swear, Galen, you’re either doing an impersonation of a friend who’s no longer alive or else you’re making fun of me. But either way, that’s not the type of thing I’m worried about right now.”

“Oh well,” he laughed and shrugged. “Maybe one day.”

“Why did you bring me here? It wasn’t to ask me questions.”

“It’s your destiny to be here,” he said. “No matter how much you tried to fight it, it’s your destiny to lead your father’s people. The CasterLan Kingdom hasn’t yet seen its greatest days.”

She groaned. “Please don’t start.”

“You have a good heart, Vere. But all too often your deeds don’t match what you’re capable of. You’re here now, though. That’s all that matters.” Then he reached into his pocket and withdrew a green bracelet. “Take it.”

He dangled it from his thumb and finger, letting it drop into her open palm. She held it up so the little bit of light that was available shined on it.

“I gave you this.”

He nodded. “A very long time ago. I didn’t stop wearing it just because I left. No amount of power or wealth, no other worldly possession, could have made me give this up.” He coughed, then said, “But it’s time for you to take it back.”

“Why?”

“I don’t need it where I’m going.”

“You’re leaving again?”

“In a way,” he said, somehow still sounding upbeat, the persistently cheerful tone that never failed to drive her mad when she was irritable.

She tucked the green bracelet into a pouch on her vest. After a moment, a thought crossed her mind and she said, “What would have happened if I hadn’t come back?”

When he didn’t reply, she reached out to touch his leg. Her fingers were only an inch away when he noticed and jumped back.

“Don’t touch me,” he gasped.

They remained like that for a moment, Galen sitting upright again, Vere thinking about everything he had said and also all the things he hadn’t said.

“Galen? What would have happened if I hadn’t come back to face the Green Knight?”

His face seemed to disappear into the darkness momentarily before reappearing with his eyes fluttering from the weight of what he was going to say.