by Vox Day
“No. They’re nowhere nearly as observant as they’d like to think they are. Why, it took them fifteen years to figure out that I was here. And while I’m not entirely sure what you’re about, I assume that you don’t have fifteen years to do it so I’ll just do you the favor of pointing out what you’re looking for.”
As he spoke, he was flipping through the fat volume, until he stopped somewhere in the middle. He cleared his throat, then read aloud to them in his bass voice that deepened a little as he assumed a theatrical manner.
Chrysaor it was hight
Chrysaor that all other swords excelled,
Well prov’d in that same day, when Iove those Gyants quelled.
For of most perfect metal it was made
Tempred with Adamant amongst the same,
And garnisht all with gold upon the blade
In goodly wise, whereof it tooke his name,
And was of no lesse vertue, then of fame.
For there no substance was so firme and hard,
But it would pierce or cleave, where so it came;
Ne any armour could his dint out ward,
But wheresoeuer it did light, it throughly shard.
“Now, there’s a man who appreciates a good blade,” he said admiringly when he had finished reading. He closed the book with a resounding thump. “You won’t see poetry like that written about a rocket-propelled grenade launcher or a main battle tank, now, you won’t.”
“What is that?” Holli asked. Khasar was looking pretty blank himself.
“Oh, it’s just a poem that a gentleman by the name of Spenser wrote four hundred years ago. It’s mostly an allegory of sorts, but not entirely. You see, I happen to know that the sword exists, and I’m quite confident that it will suffice to settle Maomoondagh, since they are of the same substance—Chrysaor was never forged on this Earth. But the man got it wrong, understandably enough. No metal of any kind went into its making, for it was shaped from a single bone of Valdalena, the Queen of Chaos, after she was struck down by the Lord of Hosts. Seven swords were made, for the seven great princes of the Sarim, but only Chrysaor, which belonged to Prince Jehuel before his fall, ever came into this world. Unless you count Abaddon’s, that is, but I can’t imagine he’d be particularly amenable to a loan. Now, exactly how it got here, I do not know, but I am quite sure that no angel can hope to wield any of the seven blades, save one of the seven princes themselves….”
He peered sharply at Khasar as his voice trailed off. “Was that your plan? That this little one should take arms against Maomoondagh? Are you mad yourself?”
“There is another, too. She has passed as his guardian.”
“For shame, archon! Even with the sword, no mortal could defeat the Mad One.”
“The Fallen have made the mistake of underestimating mortal men before. Nor are the seven blades forbidden to Man as they are to angelkin.”
“Bah,” Wayland waved him off. “It’s not forbidden for the girl to set off an atomic bomb in her hand either, but I wouldn’t expect her to survive the experience. I see your logic, but it is a fool’s hope.”
“A fool’s hope is a hope still. And in any case, it is of no concern of yours. Now, tell me where we can find this Chrysaor.”
“I do not know.” The big smith spread his powerful hands in admission of his ignorance. “I am not sure that I would tell you even if I did, but I tell you the truth. I do not know and I have never known. Very much to my regret, of course, but I have never even laid eyes on it. Once, I thought to look for it, to see if I might hope to unlock its secrets, but it had already disappeared beneath the sands of time by then. It could be anywhere, if it is truly on this Earth.”
Khasar did not seem put out by Wayland’s answer. “I see. I thank you, all the same, Smith, for your advice and for leaving the Eyes in ignorance as well. Perhaps little hope remains, but for one dreadful moment there, I thought it extinguished altogether.”
“Think nothing of it.” The bear-like shoulders shrugged, then the big Fallen angel turned to Holli and smiled. “I like a brave heart, and if this cold-hearted archon is going to throw you in the deep end, then you’ll need something to help you stay afloat. This might serve you a little better where you’re going, and after all, every hero needs a famous blade. Especially if she is a heroine.”
He reached up and withdrew the wicked black sword from its rest, and as he did so, the blade began to quiver again. Holli thought she could even hear a quiet, high-pitched moaning, as if the sword was too restless to remain silent.
“The Beast is always hungry,” said Wayland. “And so is this sword, but keep her safely scabbarded away and you need not fear her cravings. I made her to look like Stormbringer, but she is no thief of souls, so she needs a different name. Call her Flamestealer.”
Holli didn’t want to accept the nasty-looking thing, shaking and whining like a long, sharp leech, but she sensed that the big smith meant well. She glanced at Khasar, but he appeared to be noncommittal, so she nodded.
“Thank you. Would you mind, um, putting it in something for me?”
“Her. A sword has a life of its own. Especially my swords.” The smith smiled, but for the first time since she’d met him, his eyes looked old. Very, very old. “Be careful, little one. Even a heart of a lion will not save you when the dark gods are warring and their legions turn your world into a battlefield beneath their feet.”
“God can,” Holli replied with more certainty than she felt.
“Then may He keep you safe, little one, since his angels seem determined to do the opposite.”
Holli was feeling hungry, so once outside the Smithy, she walked along the canal until she found a little pub while Khasar went to find a telephone and call Derek. She was halfway through her tuna sandwich when the archon entered, and she smiled as two women at a table near the door whispered and giggled at the sight of his handsome face. If only they had any idea!
“Derek will meet us in London,” he told her. “I didn't say anything about our unexpected visitors, though.”
“What’s the point. He doesn’t need to know and it would only freak him out.” She wiped at her mouth with a paper napkin and put down her sandwich. “Khasar, do you know what you’re doing? Honestly? Suppose Excalibur had been the right sword. Would you have let me use it, knowing it might kill Derek? Or me?”
“Of course not.” Khasar looked pained at the accusation. “I never thought for a moment that using the sword could harm either one of you, or any mortal, for that matter. Arthur wasn’t harmed by it, after all.”
“Oh, yeah. I never thought of that. But if no mortal can use the sword safely, then what do we do?”
“If that’s really true, and we don’t know that it is, then that still leaves our missing angel prince. Puck claimed that he knew where Jehuel was, or that he could find him, anyhow, but I have no idea where Puck is now, even if I thought we could trust him.”
What a mess. Holli could not shake the sight of that huge army of darkness lurking on the other side of the Channel, just waiting for the order from Diavelina to swarm across the waters and sweep across England like a monstrous black tidal wave. Evil, evil, evil, on every side, she was surrounded by evil, right down to the second sword she was wearing, invisibly strapped to her belt. Two swords, and she didn’t even know how to use one!
“Khase, how do you deal with it?” she asked the archon. “Don’t you get worn down by seeing all this darkness everywhere? How do you not get totally depressed all the time?”
“It’s not so bad when you see through the charade, my dear. The mortal veil is just that, a veil. You’re seeing through it now, but you can’t possibly digest all the implications in a few weeks. I don’t think any human could, even if given years to do so. This is the time of the dark. One day, and that day is sooner now than it has ever been before, both the dark and time itself will end. You, of all people, should understand a little of that. Do you remember the joy after Rahab was broken?”
> “Only for the faithful,” Holli whispered, her vision blurring. “Not for everyone.”
Khasar was silent for a long moment. Then, at last, he nodded. “No, not for everyone. And that is why we fight Diavelina, why we fight the shadow. Not to win, but to buy time. Every day, every hour that we delay the slayers and we hold back the shadow, we give the lost sheep that much more time to repent and return to the shepherd. Even as the monsters wax great, how can I despair, when every minute purchased may mean one more lost one returned to the flock. Holding back the waters may have gained Canute nothing, but every single moment counts for us.”
Holli nodded, wiping at her eyes, then stared at the quivering circle that one wayward tear had left on the plastic-coated table. Holding back the waters. Water. Monsters. Fight. Water. Monster. Fight. Fight. Sword. Water. Monster. Sword.
“I think maybe I know where that sword is hidden,” she said slowly. Khasar looked first skeptical, then increasingly astonished as she shared her thoughts with him. Then, without saying a word, he rushed outside, presumably to make another phone call to Derek.
It wasn’t long before the archon rushed back in. “He’s turned the car around, and we’ll find him on the M6. It’s a good thing you insisted on that little red convertible, it should stand out nicely when we’re looking for it. Come on, let’s go.”
“You can’t just, like, zoom in on the cell phone or something? I thought it had a GPS built in.” Holli stuffed the paper remains of her lunch into the orange mouth of the trash can and followed him outside.
“Do I look like a GPS receiver? I know a few electronic virtuosos; I even saw one archangel draw a picture over a fax line once on a dare, but my talents are sadly limited in that regard.”
He opened his mouth and a noise that sounded like a computer dialing a telephone came out. It sounded right to Holli, but the archon shook his head.
“The sound isn’t the problem, it’s the coding. There’s so many possibilities and it’s too tricky to pick out the right one.”
They turned a corner into an alleyway, shifted into tertius and leaped into the air. In a matter of minutes, Nottingham and its castle were disappearing into the west behind them. Khasar was flying fast, so fast that Holli could barely keep up with him. They sped over the Midlands, only about 100 feet above the ground, flashing past green hills and meadows divided by knee-high stone walls, past half-abandoned villages and winding country roads barely wide enough for two cars. The Cotswolds forced them to climb higher into the sky, and Khasar gradually slowed his breakneck pace as they approached the outskirts of Oxford, not wishing to draw undue attention from the larger congregation of spirits there. As Divine angels—Khasar now appeared to be an ordinary Guardian—they were for the most part ignored by the Fallen border guards, although Holli had seen more than one turn its ugly, horned head in curious wonder as they zoomed by overhead.
Just as they were nearly past what looked like the heart of Oxford, a pair of birdlike demons swooped down from above and behind them. Only their warlike screeches alerted Khasar, who shoved Holli hard, causing her to lose control of her wings as she tumbled awkwardly to the side. The outstretched claws of the first demonic diver barely missed her, the second shrieked in pain as Khasar smoothly rolled and drew his blade at the same time and the fiery sword separated his attacker’s legs from its body as it plunged past.
“What did you do that for!” shouted the demon’s outraged companion. “We were just playing.”
Khasar transformed instantly into an image of a ram-horned Hell baron. “Play somewhere else!” he roared in a deep, guttural voice that sounded like it came from the Abyss. Holli, having drawn her own sword after righting herself, had to put a hand over her mouth as the shocked demon’s jaw dropped open and it turned and fled.
“That should teach him a lesson,” he said. He winked at her before transforming back and sheathing his sword.
“You’d think so,” Holli agreed, smiling affectionately back at him. But she did find herself glancing back over her shoulder from time to time nevertheless.
Thirty minutes later they reached the M1, and Khasar led her lower so they could get a better view of the cars passing beneath them. They stopped and hovered over the motorway, letting the cars flash past them as they waited for a sight of the familiar little convertible.
“Are you sure he’s not up ahead of us already?” For a moment, Holli thought she’d spotted Derek, but the car turned out to be a red Lotus at least twenty years newer than their MGB. “How long do you want to wait before you’re sure we missed him? We’ll have to find a phone to call him and find a place to meet.”
“No, he’s not here yet,” Khasar explained. “I know where he was when he left London, and unless he drove faster than 110 kilometers an hour, he can’t have reached here yet. Let’s give him another ten minutes, and then we’ll start drifting south.”
“But what if he did drive that fast? Didn’t you tell him to hurry?”
“If he tried to drive faster than that, it’ll be easy to find him. He’ll be on the side of the road somewhere south of here—and that’s if he’s lucky. That little toy is more of a collector’s item than a proper car. It won’t go faster than ninety without shaking itself to pieces.”
Now that he mentioned it, Holli did remember that the MG did tend to vibrate a little when they got going too fast, especially around corners. But it was cute.
“There she blows!” Khasar called out, interrupting her thoughts as he pointed at the red convertible darting in and out of traffic. Without waiting for her, he furled his wings and dropped toward the car like a hawk falling on its prey. At the last moment, he did a half-somersault, spread his wings and sat lightly on the black fake-leather of the stowed roof. He looked back up at her and spread his hands, as if to say, see how easy that was?
Right. Holli was glad she could stay in quintus, that way even if she messed up she wouldn’t hurt herself. Instead of pulling her wings in and diving, she simply flew lower and lower, approaching the car slowly from behind. As she flew just a foot or two over the empty passenger’s seat, Khasar reached up and supported her from behind as she simultaneously went down to septus, grabbed the windshield screen and pulled her legs forward into the surprisingly long leg space provided by the little car.
“Whoa!” shouted Derek and the MG lurched to the left, nearly sending Khasar flying off his precarious seat. There was a frightening moment as Holli thought Derek might lose control of the little convertible altogether, but he managed to straighten it out after a moment or two of white-knuckled concentration. “Could you please let me know before you appear out of thin air like that?”
“Sorry,” Holli apologized sincerely. Now that her heart wasn’t in her mouth, it was beating like a bass drum. “I was all nervous about hitting a moving target, and I totally forgot you didn’t know we were here.”
“My bad,” Khasar declared. “I should have thought of that. But that was a nice save, Derek. Well done, old chap.”
“Thanks,” Derek said, still put out judging by the sour look on his face. “So, what’s the rush? I assume this Smith guy fixed the sword or something? That was fast. I didn’t expect to hear from you so soon.”
“As it turns out, we didn’t have the right sword in the first place.” Derek looked back at Khasar with an expression of surprise on his face. “It seems that Excalibur was simply a run-of-the-mill magic sword, which turned out to be a good thing since a few of the Mad One’s friends showed up and took it from us.”
“Dang! Okay, so, what’s the hurry, then? I thought we were driving north to, like, take this guy out!”
“No, in the first place, he’s still in London. And in the second place, we don’t have the sword anymore, and then, it wasn’t the right one anyhow. But after I called you, Holli had a brilliant inspiration… you tell him, Holli.”
Derek looked sharply at her and Holli couldn’t help shrinking back from him. “What?” she asked defensively.
&n
bsp; “You guys have me driving up here like a maniac because you had an idea? Are you freaking nuts?”
Holli felt a little hurt. It was a good idea! Khasar even said so. And how were they supposed to see if she was right or not if they didn’t go see? She glared back at him and didn’t say anything. Derek rolled his eyes.
“Oh, so now what, you’re not going to tell me? Great, that makes a lot of sense. Well, fine, have it your way. But maybe you want to at least tell me where we’re going.”
Holli stared primly ahead. Finally, Khasar broke what would have been silence if the wind rushing past them wasn’t so noisy. “Just keep going north until you hit the M6 to Birmingham. Then A74 to Glasgow.”
“All the way north… to Scotland? Okay, whatever.” Derek didn’t say anything, he simply drove in silence, until after changing lanes to get out of the way of a speeding Mercedes, he looked over at Holli and nodded at her with a look of newfound respect. “So, Loch Ness, huh? Khasar’s right, blondie. That is brilliant. I should have thought of that.”
Holli didn’t feel that Derek had really been punished sufficiently for his uncalled-for jerkiness, but she was too excited about the possibilities to maintain the silent treatment any longer. “You could apologize.”
“Fine. I’m sorry. It’s a great idea, seriously. What made you think of it?”
“Khasar said something about somebody fighting the water, and I was just thinking about all the monsters that we saw when we were over the Channel, you know, which is water, after all, and something just clicked—”
“Wait, fighting the water?”
“The legend of King Canute,” Khasar explained helpfully. “Holding back the tide… it’s really a metaphor for English fears of foreign invasion, of course, wrapped in a cautionary tale of overweening royal arrogance….”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. So, anyway, Holli, you were saying?”
“Well, I was just thinking that if there was the one sword under the water, and it had a keeper, then maybe that would explain what the Loch Ness monster was doing there all this time. Maybe it’s, like, guarding something. And what would be more important than this sword?”