Robert Charrette - Arthur 03 - A Knight Among Knaves

by Robert N. Charrette

  "It's getting stronger," John pointed out.

  No one said anything, No one moved. John knew that they had to act. They had to do something! He felt strangely reluctant to act.

  "Deadly," Dr. Spae said, sounding awed. Her eyes were riveted on the harbinger.

  Maybe reluctance was not so strange. It was suicide to try to attack such a creature. Wasn't it?

  "We've got to do something," Kun said.

  His wavering tone suggested that he didn't know what, but his words galvanized Hagen to action. The dwarf put his Viper to his shoulder and ripped off a burst, then another. His aim was good, but the bullets passed through the harbinger as though it was not there. Beyond the serpent the slugs kicked up clots of dirt and spanged off the wrecked verrie.

  The harbinger raised its head, slowly, menacingly. Its blunt, wedge-shaped snout turned toward Hagen. Jaws gaped wide. With a hissing that John felt rather than heard, the harbinger exhaled a stream of noxious green steam that shot toward Hagen like a laser blast. Better for the dwarf if it had been a laser beam; it would have been kinder. The deadly steam splashed across his chest, dissolving his thermal suit and eating away flesh and muscle. Howling and thrashing, he fell to the ground. His spasms lessened to twitches and diminished further until he lay still, a smoking cavity in his torso. The stench was awful.

  John couldn't look at the fallen dwarf for fear of vomiting. His eyes unwillingly drifted to the harbinger. It stared back; its blazing eyes of cold fire sweeping across them, and John was sure—absolutely sure—that they didn't have a prayer.

  CHAPTER

  41

  As soon as he saw it, Holger feared that this harbinger was kin to other supernatural things that he had encountered. That fear stopped him from firing his Viper. Hagen had fired, though, and his shooting hadn't had any effect—just as Holger had suspected. The thing coiled beside the wrecked Snowhawk was one of the real nightmares, immune to the weapons of ordinary men.

  He watched in awe as the harbinger struck Hagen down. The dwarf died a painful, terrible death. A pointless death.

  Holger realized that he was backing away from the stone ; circle, away from the harbinger that he had come to slay, and he felt ashamed. He forced himself to stand his ground. It was hard; he wanted to turn and run. He didn't know where he would run to, but anywhere was better than here. Anything was better than facing that monster. He didn't want to let Bear down, but what could he do? That thing in the circle was powerful, much more powerful than any man could hope to overcome.

  He was worthless here, as worthless as the day that he had failed Mannheim. The anguish of self-loathing for his failure warred with the need to run away, and drove him to his knees. His vision blurred as tears froze his eyelids together.

  Worthless!

  Van Dieman retained a fragment of the link that he'd once had with the harbinger. Through it, he felt the magic that the creature was working on those who had pursued him. Before the crash, before the harbinger had betrayed him, he would have applauded its action. He would have enjoyed watching his pursuers stand hopelessly by, filled with despair, while the harbinger achieved its aims. He would have relished the irony of their having come so far only to stop themselves by their own fears and uncertainties.

  But those emotions were gone from him, burned away in the flames that ate his body.

  All he had now was pain.

  John watched Kun fall to his knees. Now he was really scared. Kun was supposed to be the big brave warrior, and even he was afraid to face the harbinger. If Kun couldn't face it, what was John supposed to do? What could any of them do against such a monster?

  "Take hold of yourself, Jack."

  It was Chase speaking to him, shaking his shoulder. Why wasn't the guy quaking like the rest of them? And why had he used the name Jack?-No one here did that. There was something odd about Chase, something that made John forget about the harbinger for a moment. He looked into Chase's face and saw that Chase was—Bennett.

  "I replaced Chase some time ago," Bennett said.

  "What the hell are you doing here?"

  "The Wyrm is the enemy of all who love life, and this is my fight as well. Had I known earlier that you had planned to hunt this thing down, I might have joined you sooner. As it happens, I was pursuing my own course to stop the madman and the creature, but your ambush at McMurdo forced a change in plans. Now there's no time for subtlety. We have to act."

  "We can't beat it," John told him, though Bennett surely knew. It was so obvious.

  Bennett scowled at him. "That's what it wants you to think, and you're being weak-minded enough to oblige. You've let human thought patterns corrupt your will. You're an elf, Jack! Look to your blood! You are a prince of Faery, and no servant to the will of that deceptive corruption down there!"

  "You ought to know about deception," John shouted back. All the lies Bennett had told him came flooding into his mind and along with them the one true thing that Bennett had told him, that he was an elf. "And you can drop the lies about being a prince. I know better now."

  "No lies," Bennett said solemnly. "Right now you're the one hiding behind lies. Some are the Wyrm's lies of despair, but you can rise above that, if you set aside your own lies. The very face you wear is a lie. Look at yourself!"

  Yeah, like there's a mirror handy.

  "Accept yourself, Jack, or you are lost. We all are lost. I cannot stop the harbinger alone."

  No one could stop the harbinger alone. Maybe no one could stop it at all. If an elven prince like Bennett couldn't do, what good was a changeling elf like John?

  An elf.

  John.

  The desperate dread he'd felt concerning the harbinger receded a little when John thought about his being an elf, and that realization opened for him the truth. The despair that he had thought bom of his fear and appreciation of the harbinger's power wasn't real. It was coming not from within, but from the harbinger. It was a spell, an illusion distantly akin to that which masked his true face. It was a lie. John dismissed his disguise spell, letting go of the illusion, and with it the harbinger's debilitating untruth.

  Standing revealed under the Antarctic sky as the elf he was, John felt as if a burden had been lifted from his shoulders. The harbinger's spell, or was it something else?.

  "The harbinger can't really touch an elf with its despair can it?" he asked.

  "It cannot," Bennett replied. "Its breed has subtler traps for our kind, although direct violence is their preferred response to us. They are more than capable of terrible violence."

  John had seen what the harbinger had done to Hagen. Being an elf would not have saved him from that fate, had the harbinger directed its venomous spell at him.

  "We must free your companions from the creature's influence. Only together do we have a chance to defeat it." Bennett offered his hand. "Trust me in this, and I will lead the way."

  It was a hell of a lot to ask. John glanced down at the monster, growing more bloated and powerful each time it absorbed one of its smaller brethren. There was a hell of a lot

  to be lost, too.

  He looked to Dr. Spae. She stood transfixed, staring at the horror at the center of the henge. Kun knelt, crying, shoulders slumped. Caliburn lay on the ground before him. Both Kun and Dr. Spae were enmeshed in the harbinger's spell. They were not elves, and thus were not immune. They needed his help.

  John took Bennett's hand.

  Power joined to power, they first explained to Dr. Spae about the harbinger's lies.

  Holger was letting people down. Not just Bear far away, but people right here. Dr. Spae and John Reddy for two. Bennett the elven prince for another, though Holger didn't remember him arriving. They knew he was not the craven coward he was acting, which shamed him all the more to be paralyzed as he was. He was worthless!

  They needed him. He could almost hear their voices, pleading for his help. But what good was he to them? He was too terrified of the creature down there, too sure that he had no hope agai
nst it.

  The others needed him—they said so. They needed him even more than Mannheim had. There had been nothing that

  Holger could have reasonably done to save Mannheim. He knew that now, even believed it. Mannheim was beyond help, but these people weren't. And he was failing them.

  He held his hands to his eyes. The warming circuits in his gloves radiated only the faintest heat through the insulating layers, but it was enough to melt his tears of shame.

  This was no time for tears.

  The past was only memories, many good, some not. But he couldn't live there. The present was where he lived, and if he didn't do something about the present, there would be no memories, good or otherwise.

  This was no time for memories either.

  He looked at the dragon on Caliburn's hilt. Getting to his feet, he looked down the slope at the harbinger and recognized the face of the dragon. This was what he was here for. This was what Caliburn was here for. He bent and took up the sword. Raising his eyes to heaven, he touched the sword's steel to his brow and said, "Morituri te salutamus."

  It was time for a man to take fate into his hands.

  He started down the slope. Agony. Misery. Suffering. Wretchedness. Pain. Torturous, racking, excruciating pain

  .

  Hell.

  The harbinger had given him what he asked for: eternal life.

  An eternity of anguish.

  What a dupe he had been!

  Hand in hand with Bennett and Dr. Spae, John watched Kun rise from his knees. The three mages' combined strength was barely enough to deconstruct the spells of despair the harbinger still sent to them and toward Kun. But barely was enough. Kun took up Calibum and strode deter-

  minedly down the slope toward the henge and the monster that waited within the stone circle.

  The harbinger had quadrupled in size and looked more like a dragon now than like a snake. Kun was going up against the monster with only a sword. John thought it suicidal. "He'll be killed. The harbinger will just spit up its poison and fry him."

  "You forget, Caliburn protects against magical attack," Bennett said.

  "Caliburn didn't protect Kun from the despair," John pointed out.

  "The despair is more a part of the harbinger's nature than a spell, and Caliburn has always been in tune with nature. I would say that Caliburn did not recognize the spell-enhanced projection as an attack."

  "What about the harbinger's other magic?" Dr. Spae asked.

  "As I told lack, the time for subtlety is past. Any magic that the harbinger throws against Holger Kun will be overt. Caliburn will contest such magics."

  "Then why don't we attack with Kurt?" John demanded. "Dr. Spae could throw the bolts from her staff. You must know some kind of battle spells."

  "It's not our place, Jack. We must continue toward Holger Kun, for if he slips back into the creature's influence he will be lost. We must work with all our will to support Mm, for as he draws closer to the harbinger, the potency of the creature's influence will grow stronger. Holger Kun must not be allowed to succumb to that influence. He is the sword. We must be the shield."

  Through the ritual link, John could feel the Tightness of Bennett's words. Still he yearned for a more active role, wishing he had a sword of his own and could stand behind Kun in the fight. Having brushed against Kun's essence in the effort to help him throw off the harbinger's sway, John had seen a bit of the man's heart. John understood now a little of why Bear had given Kun the sword, and his unwar-

  ranted jealousy was gone. Each of them had his part in this battle, and if John didn't concentrate on his own part, Kun might fail in his. He set to with a will to shred the harbinger's scourge of hopelessness and give Kun the chance he needed.

  Holger entered the stone circle through one of the lintel-capped structures that looked like a gateway. As he entered the inner precinct, he was slammed by the stench of corruption and decay like that of a battlefield on a hot summer's afternoon. He gagged and fell choking to the ground, retching until his stomach ached and his throat burned.

  The harbinger laughed at him. He could feel the amusement reverberating in his head.

  Behold the dragon slayer,

  That was what he had come to be, but curled in a tight fetal ball, he wasn't doing a very good job.

  Behold the frail and unfit man, the flawed vessel into which petty tyrants pour their hopes.

  Holger managed to force some of the bile back down his throat. He straggled to his hands and knees and looked at the harbinger. He almost retched again. The thing had grown, and it bloated larger as lie watched. It was more dragonlike now, having grown scaly limbs and clawed feet. Fetid and twisted, if had none of the majesty vid makers put in their dragons. Such a loathsome thing had no place on earth.

  "To hell with you," he told it.

  He got to his feet and forced himself to advance toward it. As he got closer he caught the scent of burning flesh amid the overall miasma of death.

  The harbinger's fiery eyes watched his approach.

  Turn away and live. Stay and die.

  Beowulf the dragon slayer had gotten a funeral pyre. But first he had beaten the dragon. Of course, the dragon had given him his death wound in the fight.

  There were worse ways to go.

  The harbinger reared, radiating distaste and affront at his approach; no cobra had ever made such a menacing threat display. To back up its threat, the creature spat its venom at Holger. The deadly green poison sizzled toward him. But it never touched him. Caliburn rang like a bell, tolling out defiance. The harbinger's spittle dissipated in the air.

  As Bear had said it would, Caliburn was preserving him from the enemy's sorcerous weapons.

  He didn't want to give the harbinger another opportunity to try any spells. Shouting a wordless battle cry, he attacked. He swung the sword hard, aiming for the harbinger's throat. The creature whipped its head aside. Holger swung again and this time the harbinger interposed a claw. Caliburn screeched as its edge skittered along the talon's impenetrable hardness.

  Holger attacked in a flurry, striking as hard and as fast as he could. He had to win quickly. Given the creature's size and nature, it would have reserves of endurance far beyond his own. If he could wound it soon and slow it down, he might have a chance. He saw an opening in its flashing defense of fang and talon, and struck.

  But the opening was a deception. Fending Caliburn away with its claws, the harbinger struck at Holger. Its head snapped forward like a striking snake's and only speed born of biotechnical implants saved Holger from being bitten in two. As it was, one of the thing's teeth scored a burning furrow along his left arm. The pain energized him, unleashing the strength of berserker fury that was the Department's gift. He rained blows on the harbinger, slipping away from its claws, dodging its jaws, and attacking, always attacking. His fury drove it back.

  Yet still he could not kill it. The harbinger's control of its density defied his best efforts. On one stroke Caliburn might clang against scales as hard as adamant, while on the next it might pass through the creature's substance as if it were no more than smoke. Holger fought on. The harbinger had hurt him physically; there had to be a way to hurt it.

  His fighting rage faltered as adrenaline-stoked muscles burned away their fuel. Claws of fire raked across his side, ripping through his thermal suit and deep into his flesh. He felt and heard some of his ribs splinter. There was an excruciating moment of agony, then he felt nothing of the wound. But he could smell the death stink of it. His time was almost gone.

  The harbinger struck him again, this time with the back of its taloned forefoot, and knocked him down. He could barely breathe. He sure as hell wasn't going to be able to get out of the way. It slithered nearer and loomed over him. The raw stink of its fetid breath made the earlier stench as nothing.

  As a child he'd dreamed of being a knight and fighting dragons. In his dreams, the knight always won.

  The harbinger rose up, fanged maw gaping to swallow him. />
  Van Dieman's world was suffering. His body was afire and would burn forever. The reward of the faithful—his reward—life eternal. Everlasting agony.

  The darkness, the dread darkness he had so feared since he was a child, was denied him. He had been a foolish child. Now that it was denied, he longed for such sweet surcease.

  He felt the faint touch of the harbinger. Its distant amusement was oil on the fires of his torture. It had been so very kind to him, and such kindness deserved reward. He owed it.

  Oh, how he owed it!

  Though his tongue was blackened and split, he said, "I give you a gift, Harbinger, freely and with all my will"—and he used the link to send the harbinger all the agony he knew. He lost nothing by it. He had more than enough pain to fill the world.

  The harbinger threw its head back and roared, not in triumph but in surprise and pain. Holger didn't understand why—maybe the magicians had hurt it somehow—but he

  knew this was his last chance. He had to get up. He had to take advantage of this opportunity.

  But he was weak, exhausted.

  Where was the superhuman strength that the dwarves had said he was capable of?

  Spent. Gone.

  The doctors of Department M had built into him mechanisms to increase his strength, but they hadn't told him how to use such advantages. He wished they had. He needed that sort of edge now, needed their gifts just one more time before his life bled away.

  He could hear voices again. They weren't the false memories that had been crammed into his head, but true memories— of friends long gone, of his parents, of his mentor Mannheim. They were reminding him that a man was more than flesh and bone, more even than what man's technology could make him. They were the voices of Dr. Spae and John Reddy urging him to find the strength to get up. Bennett called to him more dis-tandy, reminding him of the sword.

  Caliburn, Bear's trust, placed into Holger's hand to use.

  To honor.

  Not to abandon.