The Eagle and the Sword (The Perilous Order of Camelot Book 2)

by A. A. Attanasio

  Cissa claps his hands over its oily rainbow smoke, and it seeps back into Fen's inert body. The lamia is weak. The viper-priest nods to two of the Thunderers, and they run off into the woods.

  The afternoon sun cuts low through the trees when they return with a British charcoal seller. His hands, black from his work, clasp in prayer even though he is grasped under both arms by his captors. The wild look in his smudged, whiskery face attests to the surprise ringing in his brain that he is yet alive.

  Fen has recovered enough from his torment to sit against the ash and breathe strength from the pollen-rifted air. At the sight of the terrified Briton, he knows what will happen, and he bucks to his feet with a cry.

  Cissa punches him between the eyes with the heel of his hand, and Fen sits down hard, eyes distracted like someone hearing his name arrive from far away.

  The lamia unspools from his chest with a shriek, and the Thunderers release the charcoal peddler and flee.

  He, too, turns to flee. Before he can move, flanged jaws pierce him behind the neck and talons crack his sternum and flay his rib cage. And then he is on the wing. He flies up into the ash, feet tumbling over his head, blood shaking through the leaves. He hangs upside down, the rictus of death on his horrified face inverted to a rigid leer.

  While the lamia feeds, Cissa pounds his chest, drumming the Furor closer. Clouds clot the sun, and a rope of lightning dangles in the distance. When the thunder rumbles in, the Furor comes with it. He pitches through the blue-black sky in a thrash of hot rain that melts the sheet of blood on the corpse's clenched face.

  "All-Seeing Father," Cissa intones, arms outstretched to the god in the divinity's dark mantle of storm, "open the way into the hollow hills. Send Fen down the stairs of night to your dwarf Brokk, who holds your sword Lightning. Send him into the depths of the sleeping Dragon."

  A thundercloud blooms directly overhead purple as an orchid. Its stem of voltage cracks the air to fiery heat and a dizzy smell. At once, Fen lurches upright, compelled by a force wide as the sky, and bounds in giant steps past Cissa and the Thunderers crouching among the trees and Aelle with his heavy arms upraised in awe.

  Fen hurtles through the forest, whirling, running backward, leaping sideways, dashing forward again, flying faster as if he is about to spin off the earth. The lamia shoots after him in a screaming vapor trail.

  The green shadows of the forest explode to darkness, and Fen falls rolling, tumbling, skidding into an eternal night of flaming rock and slag smoke. He sits up dazed, dying as far as he can tell. Maybe dead already, he feels, and in the dark kingdom of the divine witch Hel.

  The lamia unwinds. Strong from its feeding, it clothes his bruised nakedness in its colorful shadows so that he stands lithely in the hot stink of sulfur fumes and soft steel. Fen looks down and sees his loins trussed in cool silk, his feet shod in pythonskin sandals.

  The stinking heat of the underworld sloughs away, and the lamia's chill presence soothes him. There is a place to go, a thing to find for its masters, a thing that must be found to earn for itself the next meal of spilled blood, and it rides Fen hard into the scalding dark.

  Across the shuddering horizon, Hannes and Bright Night approach. The drastic heat and stink rip breathing to short gasps, and the master builder holds on to the prince with one arm and puts a shining hand over his nose and mouth. The frosty fragrance of conifers from the elf's sweat cuts the sick smoke and drags the whole heart of himself toward a dream.

  He almost nods off and has to drop his perfumed hand and smell again the putrid gas.

  The spirit horse charges toward Fen. But the riders do not see him, because the steed abruptly dips behind a smoking scarp and plummets into a sinkhole.

  The torrid stench peels away before a fresh, floral wind, and darkness ruptures to a tumultuous green vista. Monkeys chitter a strange summer into place: cloud plateaus surge in green sky lakes above a triple-canopy jungle of silver-trunked trees scalloped with gold wedges of fungus. Rainbow-splashed birds click, fret, toll, and chime, and monkeys—troops of them in green, auburn, and black—screech and scatter through high galleries above ghostly tree boles.

  "Where are we?" Hannes gasps in the dense, sweet air.

  "Not very far from the Happy Woods," Bright Night replies. "This is the jungle of the monkey gods. It is very ancient, and we are not welcome here. We must move on."

  "Where are we going?"

  "We cannot face Brokk alone. Not with the sword Lightning in his hand. I must gather my troops. We will find them in the fields and groves near the Happy Woods, where the Piper plays and the Celtic dead dance into their next lives."

  They stream through a welter of hanging air plants and across sepulchral chambers whose brown-green atmospheres dangle luminous root tendrils and parasitic loops. Among the ponderous leaves in the somber naves of the jungle, where the dazzling light from the sky lakes is muted by the weight of vegetation, giant apes watch sullenly.

  "If we do not stop, we are safe," Bright Night explains, his voice muffled by the excited jabbering of the jungle. "The monkey gods are the oldest of our kind who sought refuge in the hollow hills. They have lived a long time here in the roots of the Storm Tree. When the Dragon is awake, they sacrifice their own to appease it. And they are not averse to seizing strangers for their blood rituals."

  The green cataclysm of floppy leaves, tangled vines, and monkey screams dims away. The elf-horse bounds into a chaparral of dwarf willows and golden grass broomed by an alpine wind.

  Hannes spots swarms of faeries—yellow darts of being, half-insect and half-human, like peelings from the sun. Above the broad horizon, a semblance of the moon floats in an ice green sky, a swollen moon of peach color, so large that pocks and rings of craters are visible.

  "As above, so below," Bright Night intones. "The celestial energies captured by the branches of the Storm Tree reflect here in the roots. These energies are distorted in the underworld, yet still I think they are beautiful."

  "Yes—" Hannes agrees, breathless. He grins, stupid with joy. He must ask himself if he dreams, and he pinches his fingers. And still it persists—the astonishing vista of the netherworld's day sky with its peach moon and clots of stars in stellar vapors twisting like chimneys of smoke.

  "Down there are the sacred fields, where the holy souls of saints and righteous heroes contemplate God and decide whether to live again as people or to leave our world entirely."

  Hannes looks below at an emerald expanse of savanna and far-off huts touched by silver sunlight. Then the galloping steed veers and bounds along the pink-sand beach of a glassy lake cluttered with rock spires and boulders. Mermaids sun on rock ledges above indigo shadows of deep water. Their iridescent tails and salt-sprinkled hair glitter hypnotically as jewels.

  "To live here, they must feed the Dragon, too," Bright Night continues. "In these pools, many a sailor has been fed to the Drinker of Lives."

  "Where is the Dragon?" Hannes asks, spellbound by the tiniest details of his trespass in the underworld: sun rays hanging in the long grass, a fog of mayflies near the lapping water, a quick blur of salamanders through the weed stalks, and the far-off music of the mermaids, whose soulful songs slash and glide with the algal breeze and the smack of small waves on the ruddy shore.

  Bright Night feels Hannes's grip slackening and reaches back to shake him loose from the tranceful singing. "Fall off here, Hannes, and the mermaids of the sky lake will show you where the Dragon slumbers—but you'll not come back from there."

  Quickly, Hannes jerks free of his song-induced lethargy and tightens his grasp about the elf's waist. He stares down and notices that they are ascending. The amethyst sky lake gleams on a level above the saints' savanna, which itself encloses the faeries' chaparral and, far below, the strangled greens of the monkey gods' jungle. Now they mount over crackling tundra toward purple peaks.

  "Will we see the Dragon?" Hannes asks timorously.

  "Not if our luck holds. The Dragon curls around its sleep dee
p within the fiery depths." Bright Night motions ahead toward a gateway of lavender snow peaks. On the far side, griffins swim in the dusk, tawny shadows with weighty cries that rend the air like bells.

  "Over these peaks are the Happy Woods of the Daoine Sid. There we shall find allies willing to fight for the king's sword. But we must be swift. Already I sense the Furor's shadow among the roots of the Great Tree."

  The shadow that the elf-prince detects is Fen, who flows with an inhuman grace through the black terrain of burning rocks. The lamia inside him ignores the caustic fumes and the lamps of pain glowing in his lungs.

  And when Fen jumps with alarm at the strangled voices in the melting rocks, the lamia calms him. On a narrow, enamel ledge above a blind abyss, the lamia steadies him, and he hurries onward. He moves swiftly, because the lamia knows time hunts them.

  Fen does not want to try to free himself from the monster: not in this dangerous place. He is glad for the alien thoughts that lead him safely on these obscure pathways where boulders unfurl to flames. He wants to accomplish whatever he has been sent to do and offers no resistance. Even when the scarlet shadows thrown by sudden fires lead him toward a dwarf with a brutal face waving a spectacular sword, he does not hesitate.

  He strides into the weapon's range, and he cannot stop looking at the blade, even though the dwarf is speaking gruffly, demanding to know who he is.

  The steel blue of the razor edge is quiet with dreams. He does not understand at first. The sword rises, threatening to strike him, yet he stands unmoving, caught by something he did not know he loved.

  He realizes, then: this is what he came for.

  The entombed voice of the lamia's twin ekes sadly from nearby, and the monster inside Fen startles alert.

  "I say, who are you?" the dwarf demands irately. "Speak or die."

  Fen cannot find his voice. The lamia churns within, luminous and angry.

  "Is he the one you summoned?" A tall woman with small black eyes in a moonly white face emerges from the red shadows. The heat has wrung her crinkled hair to long, garish streaks, and diamond sparkles of sweat bead her face. Though she is thin as a cat, she has big shoulders. "Look at him, Brokk. He does not sweat. And his wrap and sandals have an odd shimmer, do they not? I think he is one of the Furor's own."

  "No." Brokk glowers. Menace barbs his nasty eyes. He feels the lamia in his pouch squirming, and he peeks in just long enough to see its red grin. "Something is wrong. The lamia is excited. This is a Sid trick to get the sword."

  "Are you of the Daoine Sid?" she asks, striding forward. "This heat—this stink—we've had enough of it. Summon your prince. We would talk with him."

  "What are you saying, Morgeu?" Brokk interrupts, pushing her aside, and pointing the sword at the thunderbolt scar over Fen's heart. "No terms with the enemy."

  "I am not your enemy," Fen's voice croaks from him, and the lamia rises high into his chest. "The Furor sent me to get his sword."

  "You lie!" Brokk thrusts, and the lamia in Fen impels the Saxon backward, flashing an enraged fang-face through his ribs. "By the Norns! Another lamia!"

  Fen gapes about, confused—then sees the pale green smoke leaking from the dwarf's pouch. "You have a monster, too?"

  Morgeu stays Brokk's sword arm. "Who are you?" she asks suspiciously.

  "I am Fen, son of Aelle chief of the Thunderers. This gruesome thing is upon me, because the Furor has used it to send me safely here to get his sword."

  "I do not believe you," Brokk states coldly. He notices the lamia drooling from his hip pouch, snatches it in one wringing hand, and stuffs it back.

  Morgeu smears the sweat from her face and, ignoring the dwarf, wearily expels the stink from her lungs. "Lead us out of here, Fen."

  Fen gestures to the pouch, feeling the lamia's dark call touching the inside of his skin. "The lamia want to be together."

  "Bring the Furor to me," Brokk says, "and I'll have no more need of this shapeshifter."

  Morgeu pushes at Fen, not caring if he is Sid or Saxon, craving air. "Lead us out, Fen. If you are as you say, then the shadow I leave behind us as we go will be all that the Furor will need to find his way down here to his sword."

  "And if he is a Sid illusion, Morgeu?" Brokk challenges.

  "I care not at all," she confesses, and slouches toward the dark fathoms. "I am sick to death here. I cannot stay."

  Fen turns grudgingly. The sword and the twin lamia are why he has come. But the dwarf stares at him with malefic certainty, the splendid sword unwavering in his grip.

  Morgeu's slick hand takes Fen's arm and pulls as the lamia echo dark cries in his blood. Slowly, weighed down by longing, he turns to tread the chasms back to the sun.

  Chapter 22: The White Bird

  Arthor kneels in the dew before his shield, praying to Mother Mary. The sun has not yet risen, yet curlews cry in the gray light.

  "Mother Mary, grant me the strength to defend Him now that He has left us alone in the devil's world. Grant me the strength to fight for Him until He returns."

  Usually, the Virgin's routine reply comes from far across the field of patience. This time the words sound crisply above his bowed head: Love is first, Arthor. Never abandon. Never abandon.

  He looks up sharply. No one stands in the grass flattened by last night's rain. Only torn mist moves among the big trees, light and angular as dancers.

  "Mother?"

  The forest canopy rustles, and this commotion pushes him to his feet as a shadow rushes out of the darkness.

  A dove descends and alights upon the top edge of the shield. In the dim air, it glows.

  Hands clasped, he falls to his knees again. Prayer stalls in him at the dark thought that this could be the shapeshifter. He reaches for the stone dagger tucked in his sword belt.

  "It is just a white bird," Melania says, stepping through the beech trees behind him. She tosses a rusk of black bread onto the wet grass, and the dove hops toward it. In her other hand, she carries the serpent-egg urn and places that on the ground with another rind of bread atop it, then takes Arthor's elbow and leads him back into the beeches. "Fen has run off to protect us. He doesn't want to kill."

  "He would have slain me last night," Arthor objects, and puts a hand over hers where she holds his arm. "Were it not for you, I'd be a corpse now."

  "Look." She points with her chin to where the dove perches on the urn and plucks at the bread. "No lamia would stand there."

  Arthor's young face brightens. "Then this is the Holy Spirit."

  She looks at him chidingly. "It is a white bird, Arthor."

  "No," he insists, earnestly. "The dove came to me while I prayed. This is the Holy Spirit."

  "As you say.”

  The disdain in her voice separates Arthor from her. "You are not a woman of faith?"

  "Faith did not save my father or my brothers," she answers bitterly. "They died defending their land against pagans. Pagans! Is their god stronger than ours?"

  In the winey light, her sculpted beauty seems inflamed, and she speaks with orphic intensity: "Or is there no god at all? No god—only the scattered rubbish of dead bodies and the blind armies that clash over them?"

  Her dark, large eyes reach into him defiantly. "What is faith, Arthor, but fear and the bewilderment of pain?"

  Arthor closes his mouth and manages to mutter, "Is that what you believe?"

  "Why do you regard me so astonished?" An incredulous smile holds her scorn. "Young as you are, you have fought battles. You have slain men and seen your comrades slain. I am the one who is astonished. You yet cling to faith?"

  "Jesus is Our Savior."

  "What does that mean?" she challenges, her sable locks tossing forward as her head rears back. "He did not save my family."

  "Then you do not understand what it is to be saved," Arthor reacts sharply. He tries to soften his tone when he sees an irate shadow flex sharply between her eyes: "Were there no priests to teach you? Did you not read the good news in the Bible?"

>   "As a girl, I read the good news, and I believed the priests," she answers, hands on her hips. "As a woman, I have seen the power of the sword. It cut away everything good in my life. Jesus could not stop the power of the sword in his life, and he cannot stop it now in his afterlife."

  "Jesus is not a warrior. He offers us salvation beyond this life."

  "Then why fight the pagans, Arthor?" she scolds. "Let them kill you. Your salvation awaits you."

  "This world is a battlefield, Melania, where good and evil clash. We must choose for whom we fight. But we must fight."

  "Jesus did not fight. The Romans beat him, scourged him, and nailed him to the cross—and he did not fight."

  "He came to die," Arthor replies bluntly. "He was the sacrifice that annuls the past. All our pagan history is paid for in full by his blood. Now we are free to live for love. No longer are we bound to ancestral rites and pagan gods who demand murder, vengeance, and wealth, and who reward the strong and crush the meek. Jesus pardons that sinful past so that we may live a new way, not the old way of the pagans, who worship only might and its gains. We are commanded to build a world of love. And for that love, we must fight."

  "Love?" She sneers at him. "What love is won by the sword? You speak nonsense, Arthor."

  "No." He meets her scoffing glare with calm assurance. "I speak of the love of justice—a love that protects the weak, the sick, and the poor, that defends the good, and that destroys what is evil."

  "You are a child."

  He smiles gently at her anger. '"And a child shall lead them.'"

  "As you say."

  "Not as I say, Melania." He softly places a hand on her shoulder and points through the beeches to where the dove has returned to its perch atop his shield. "Look, the dove of the Holy Spirit has come to me."

  She shakes her head and holds a chilled stare on him. "There are dark times ahead for us all, Arthor. We shall see how long you keep the white bird."

  Hurt by how bluntly his childlike faith confounds her losses, as if God had ruined her family out of spite, she barges through the trees, startling the dove to flight, and retrieves the urn. Without looking at Arthor, she shoulders past him.