“Are these runes which are inscribed here of magical importance to your firespitters?”
She was referring to the Federal Cartridge Company headstamp. “No, it’s how they’re made that counts. That’s why I use this brand—kind of ammunition for my firespitters, pistols.”
Swan tossed the cartridge into the air, simultaneously speaking words which were totally unintelligible to him—had to be from the Old Tongue. The cartridge floated, weightless seeming, and a vortex formed around it. Light appeared to emanate from the cartridge, filling the vortex. From deep within it, a single cartridge fell, then another and another. The succession of cartridges became a stream, flowing out of the vortex, heaping onto the flagstones below. The pile of cartridges grew and grew, to the height of Garrison’s knee, to the height of his hip. Still, the stream continued to flow from the vortex.
“Tell me when you think you will have enough, Al’An.”
“Oh, anytime now really would be just fine, actually.” Garrison knew that he should be used to magic by now, but realized that he was shaking his head in disbelief.
The flow slowed to a trickle, then a handful more spilled from the vortex and the vortex began to close.
The original cartridge Garrison had placed in Swan’s hand, which she had flung into the air, arced back into her waiting palm. Swan returned it to Garrison. “Thank you,” he told her, his eyes on neither Swan nor the thousands of rounds of ammunition, but on the original cartridge.
He heard her telling him, “I’ve never made ammo before. It’s easy.”
“You’ve brought a whole new meaning to hand-loading, darling.”
“And,” Swan continued, ignoring his quip, “your ammo is magical, now. If you must use it against a magical enemy, it will be much more effective.”
Still looking at the original cartridge, seeing nothing odd or different about it, he asked, “So I should use the new stuff and put my old ammunition away?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
“If you do not see yourself using a sword, Al’An,” and the sword which Swan had made and which had hung in thin air since she’d shown it to him instantly vanished, “then you will at least need protection from the swords wielded by your enemies.” This seemed to be quite serious to her, judging from the look on her face as he finally stopped staring at the cartridge. “I know!”
Garrison felt movement in the left side of his bomber jacket. As he looked down, his badge and Bureau ID had already floated from his pocket, the gold badge floating on into Swan’s hand, the ID returning to his pocket. “I heard this object called a shield, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, but—no, Swan!”
Garrison was too late. She’d flung his badge into the air. For a split second, nothing happened, except his badge still floated, and he wondered if he was going to wind up with another vortex and another pile beneath it, only this time—But, his badge began to glow, differently than the cartridge had. There was a burst of light and Garrison blinked.
When Garrison looked again, his badge was almost two feet wide and nearly three feet long. The gleaming shield returned to Swan’s hands and she presented it to him. “It is magical and will help to protect you, Al’An.”
All of the embossing on the surface of his badge was present, just as it had been, the letters perfectly reproduced, but perfectly reversed. “IBF,” Garrison commented.
“IBF? What does that mean?”
“On my shield, darling. IBF.”
“Oh!” She smiled sweetly. “The Golden Shield of IBF. The Golden Shield of IBF. It sounds nice.”
Garrison nodded, walked to the pile of ammunition and picked up one of the cartridges. It felt perfectly normal, looked perfectly normal to him as he glanced at the headstamp. The letters were not reversed, but their order was, perfectly.
“IBF. That is a good name for your shield, Al’An.”
Garrison smiled, nodded. “Yes, I think so! There’s not another one like it anywhere, I’ll bet. Thank you, darling, very much.”
Swan lowered her eyes, embarrassed by his gratitude he presumed...
Alan Garrison wondered if all shields felt this heavy to begin with, but supposed he’d get used to the weight. The Golden Shield of IBF was slung over his left shoulder, and in his right hand he carried a wooden bucket brimming over with cartridges. “I could carry your shield, Al’An.”
“No, darling, it’d be a little heavy for you.”
“Don’t worry!” The Golden Shield of IBF left his shoulder and fell in beside them, floating surfboard-like in the air.
Between the two bridges leading to the keep’s backyard, Garrison had remembered a spot where the trees were widely spaced and there was an embankment rising into the hill on which the summer palace was built. It was the perfect spot to shoot, and he was not about to stake his life or Swan’s or anyone’s on magic ammunition which was never tested.
The Golden Shield of IBF was alternately at their heels or beside them, like a puppy. When they reached the spot which Garrison had remembered, he asked Swan, “Would you like to put down my shield now?”
The Golden Shield of IBF made a perfect landing to lean against the trunk of a willow tree. “Is there anything which I can do to help, Al’An?”
“Yes, actually. Would you find some pinecones?”
Half expecting a pile of pine cones to appear out of thin air, Garrison was mildly but pleasantly surprised that Swan ran off to find some in the ordinary way. While she was gone, Garrison set to unloading his magazines, then reloading them with the ammunition Swan had made for him with her magic.
Swan soon returned, carrying a woven basket which she hadn’t had when she left, the basket stuffed with pinecones.
Garrison thanked her, took the basket and set out the pinecones as targets. The maximum range he could get without the trees interfering was about fifty feet. He wasn’t after all, testing his marksmanship skills, Garrison reminded himself. Swan stood beside him, but Garrison waved her back, in case magical ammo exploded when fired from nonmagical guns. “Cover your ears. Tight!”
There were a few emergency items which Garrison carried along with him whenever possible, among them a Leatherman Supertool, a folding magnifying glass and a small case containing a pair of earplugs. Unfortunately, when Swan magically whisked him into her world, none of those things—except for the magnifying glass—were on his person. On the plus side, any ringing in his ears or damage done to his hearing would be gone in no time because of the magical energy at the summer palace.
Keeping the pistol well away from his face, and partially averting his eyes as he began to squeeze the trigger, he fired. The sound was just as loud as ever, but no louder. Looking at the weapon, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. He’d seen the bullet impact the general area of the target. Keeping the muzzle pointed downrange, he spied the spent cartridge case in the grass and picked it up. Nothing unusual. “So far, so good.” Garrison repeated the procedure with the same results. Confident that firing the magically made ammunition wasn’t especially dangerous, Garrison fired through his two primary and two spare magazines, wiping out a considerable number of defenseless pinecones in the process. By the time he was through, his hearing was suffering. Under normal conditions, the hollow sound which some people called ringing would have gone away in an hour or two.
By the time he turned to face Swan and signaled that she could lower her hands from her ears, Garrison’s hearing was already returning to normal.
“Was the ammo okay?” Swan asked.
“The ammo was better than okay,” he told Swan. “It was perfect.” He wondered if she’d want to use her magic to pick up the fired brass...
Swan stood between Al’An and Erg’Ran, in the passageway leading to the chamber in which the Sword of Koth prisoner had been placed.
“Which of us is going to be the good cop and who’s gonna be the bad cop?”
“I don’t understand, Champion,” Erg’Ran told Al’An. Swan was glad Erg�
��Ran had said it. “We are fighting for good,” Erg’Ran continued, “and our Sword of Koth prisoner fought for evil. And you’re the only cop who is here.”
Al’An shook his head and smiled good naturedly. “No, see, Erg’Ran, we gotta get this Sword of Koth guy feeling that he can trust one of us to protect him from the other guy. I’ll give you an example. Say, you’re the bad cop, right?”
“I’m the bad cop, right.”
Al’An shook his head again. “No, I don’t mean say it, but just pretend.”
“Erg’Ran should pretend that he said it, Al’An?”
“Start over. Okay. Now, Erg’Ran, you pretend that we’ve got the Sword of Koth trooper there in a chair all alone in a room. Okay? So in you go, and you’re the bad cop. I mean, you’re not really bad, but just pretending to be. You tell this little bad ass you’re puttin’ him away in the house of many doors for the long count, how you’re gonna make sure he’s buyin’ so much hard time he’ll be too old to qualify for Social Security if he ever gets out. Like that.
“Then,” Al’An went on, “you make like you lose your temper when he doesn’t answer you, see? You get your face up right in front of his and shout at him, tell him that if he doesn’t come clean and spill his guts you’re gonna put the word on the street that he ratted on his homies, sang the whole opera, huh! Then, either way, whether it’s the big house or some liberal judge lets him walk on a technicality, his ass is grass with his posse and, if they don’t whittle on him with a chain saw first, he’ll be cryin’ for Witness Protection. And we won’t give it to him. That’s the bad cop routine, Erg’Ran.”
“I see, Champion.”
“You do? Good. Now, see, pretend you’re the good cop. You walk in, see that the bad cop’s giving the prisoner a hard time. You tell the bad cop to go grab himself a cup of coffee and a danish or somethin’. As soon as he’s outta the room, you offer this Sword of Koth guy a cigarette, light it up for him. Tell him how the bad cop can really make a lot of trouble, da-da-da-da-da. You win over his confidence, telling him that you’ll put in the good word with the judge, like that. Tell him you’ll keep the bad cop from getting anywhere near him.
“Then, the bad cop comes in again,” Al’An continued, “and he snatches the cigarette away from the Sword of Koth guy, starts pitchin’ a fit. You calm him down, shag him outta there and tell the Sword of Koth there’s not much you can do unless he throws somethin’ your way and starts to talk.”
“You have found such a charade efficacious in the interrogation of a prisoner?” Erg’Ran queried, sounding incredulous.
“On a lotta guys, yeah. See, he’s lookin’ at a Federal rap. Same thing here, really. When we defeat Eran, Swan’s going to be in charge and you guys helping her, so you’ll be the government. Same idea.”
Swan cleared her throat. “I was considering using magic in order to secure his cooperation, Al’An. Is the good and bad cop technique to be preferred, you think?”
Al’An said nothing for a moment, took a cigarette from its package—Swan lit it magically—and said, “Well, we can try the magic thing first, I guess. If it doesn’t work, then we go into good cop-bad cop.”
“Oh, that is a fine approach,” Swan assured him.
The three resumed walking along the passageway. “We’re going to want to get the dope on troop strength, their overall defensive posture. Remember,” Al’An advised, “if he starts telling us about which Horde of Koth units are where, we want to push him to know if the units are at full strength, like that.”
“Very good suggestions, Champion,” Erg’Ran noted.
“We are looking for weaknesses in their defenses,” Swan observed. “Those are very good things to find out.”
“How will you do this, with magic, I mean?” Al’An asked.
“It is cruel, which was why I had wished that he would speak before now. I will make him believe that he is with his comrades among the Sword of Koth, merely conversing about the topics over which we are concerned. He will be temporarily unaware that he was ever captured.”
“What’s cruel about that, Swan?”
Erg’Ran answered for her. “When the spell is lifted, he will remember that he has betrayed his oath and his honor, if indeed the Sword of Koth have honor.”
Swan watched Al’An, who nodded his understanding.
No one stood guard, the chamber door was secured by magic. Swan caused the door to open. She looked away, burying her face against Al’An’s chest.
Erg’Ran spoke. “He had some little magic, perhaps.”
Al’An asked, “That how he got the knife, you think? Or maybe we missed it in the search?”
“We may never know.”
“Nobody could have murdered anybody here, right?”
“Such cannot happen at the summer palace; the magical energy prevents evil from having any power here. He is dead at his own hand. No magic can prevent that, I fear, when despair seizes the mind.”
“So much for getting information. G’Urg!”
“Yes,” Erg’Ran responded. “As you say.”
The Sword of Koth had opened his wrist and bled to death. His skin was a ghastly shade of grey, and there was blood congealed in the fissures between the flagstone beneath him.
Swan had seen worse, but the realization that this Sword of Koth had taken his own life somehow made her think of what might happen when their current endeavor had run its course and was ended. If she defeated her mother’s forces, and her mother, too, then what? Swan could not bring herself to cause her mother’s death.
And if her mother defeated her? That her mother would almost certainly find a worse fate than any death however horrible was the likely scenario. In that case, her magic spent, her cause lost, would she—
“I’m getting Swan out of here,” Al’An said to Erg’Ran.
“Agreed. Send Gar’Ath and some others.”
“Right.”
Swan felt herself being moved along the passageway, almost lifted from her feet, Al’An’s arms tight about her. If she failed, all that she loved was doomed to horror beyond imagining. If she succeeded, there would be horror enough as well. Tears fell from her eyes; there was no hope of stopping them other than by magical means; she would not do that.
Chapter Ten
The children, the noncombatant women and men, the few warriors who would remain behind, all were ranked on either side of the path leading down from the castle walls to the icy sea, Woroc’Il’Lod.
The sun shone brightly. The Golden Shield of IBF, polished, was slung to Alan Garrison’s left side as he walked. Swan had talked him into the magically enhanced axe carried in his right hand. He’d convinced her that this plus his two knives were sufficient edged weaponry. She asked to be allowed to give the knives magic, too. Relenting, he was now the only man in existence with magically endowed push-button opening knives.
All of the warriors, men and the few women, were afoot, no room for their horses aboard the ships. Only Swan was on horseback. Befitting her nobility as the Virgin Enchantress, Daughter Royal, Princess of Creath, this was expected. She rode sidesaddle aboard the finest horse from the Company of Mir, a great palomino stallion with a darkly flowing bronze mane and long swishing tail. Its saddle and bridle were gold mounted. Swan, too, was regally dressed for the part.
Her hair was pinned up beneath a crown of yellow flowers trailing golden ribbons. She wore a dress of deep maroon color, gold thread woven into its neckline, elbow-length sleeves and hem. Tiny gold spurs adorned shining black boots visible below the lace trimmed petticoats. Buckled round her little waist was a sword, its burnished hilt gleaming in the sun’s rays. Garrison knew Swan well enough to know that she had no intention of traveling over Woroc’Il’Lod to Edge Land so attired.
As Champion, Garrison had been told, he was to walk before her horse and lead its reins as they processed. Flanking him and a little behind him were Gar’Ath and Mitan. Erg’Ran limped along several paces ahead, wearing his finest scholarly robes, axe
in hand.
The path led down past the cavern, beside the rails along which, earlier, Garrison had assisted in the launch of their five ships, now at anchor along the shore. Because of their structure—wide abeam and without a keel—and the manner in which the vessels were launched, they had shallow drafts and could be anchored close in along the surf.
The members and families of the Company of Mir who stayed behind followed in the procession’s train, down the path and onto the rocky coast itself. Cold spray blew off shallow pools on an otherwise warm breeze. It was slower going along the shore, and Garrison was careful to guide Swan’s mount around the deeper pools lest the animal break a leg. But the practicality of the royal personage riding horseback became abundantly clear as they turned out toward the vessels themselves. Everyone else, Garrison included, was forced to wade through the low breakers, getting drenched to the waist, while Swan, mounted, never got her dainty boots wet.
Erg’Ran was using his axe shaft as a staff to steady himself. The first to reach the vessel on which Swan would travel, he called out something Garrison could not hear. In a moment, a ladder was let down to him astern on the portside. Erg’Ran stood in the water, steadying the ladder.
Garrison had been rehearsed in this as well. As Champion, he was to take Swan from her saddle and set her feet upon the ladder. When he guessed that he was close enough to the centermost of the five ships, Garrison reined in Swan’s horse. On cue, Gar’Ath took the reins from Garrison and Mitan took Garrison’s axe and shield.
Garrison turned to face Swan. She smiled at him, then slipped one arm around his neck as he slid her from the saddle. Carrying her the few steps to the ladder, he was nearly seized with laughter, holding it back by sheer force of willpower. Swan’s face was close to his and she whispered to his ear, “What is it, Al’An?”
“Realize how stupid we’d look if I tripped?”
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