“Let go! Both of you! Let go!”
The wagon seemed to lift over him, feet churning mainly air as the lank figure suddenly sat up and clung to the rattling sides against the madly shifting tilt and his tremendous voice flattened all other sound for a moment (Broaditch couldn’t tell if they were actually words) and Alienor flashed past, ghostly, pressed flat against a bulge of rockface, then the girl not even turning aside, barely glancing up …
Christ! he thought. Christ!
… and then, somehow, they were past as if shadow and substance had melted together (he never understood how) because the path was too narrow … then the terrific voice ceased and his own was shouting into the rattling din and rushing wind:
“Jump out! I cannot hold!”
And where was Pleeka, could he be far ahead? … Then he was suddenly sitting on air, then the racing earth pounded his buttocks with warm, dull pain and the banging dinning passed like a dark wing flutter over him and he waited for the impact and then it was past and lost and he just sat there, panting, numbed (the pain underneath just beginning to come through), halted in shock and silence, one leg over a sheer cliff edge, thinking:
What a thing to have died doing … Carting a madman …
Listening to it going on, clacking, banging, suddenly frail again like (he imagined) a child’s toy … gone … and then Torky and the boy were breathlessly beside him while he just sat there looking out over the wide night, staring into the indecipherable emptiness below where faint spots of flame reminded him of smeared fireflies …
He felt the rush of air and opened his eyes, knowing instantly that the demons had shattered his defenses while he lay weakened and were dragging him through the earth to the pits of hell. Felt himself flung back and forth and sat up already fighting for control, beginning his chant for power, hands gripping what he didn’t know were the sides of the wagon, booming out his magic as he sped faster and faster down into the gaped darkness towards fangs of fire; he saw his magic drive the female demons back (heard their pitiful shouts of dismay), knew his power and fell silent and smug, holding on as the wild ride accelerated and he gathered his strength, calmly waiting for the bottom where he would subdue the king of devils because all this was ordained by destiny. He would descend and gather the forces he needed to fulfill his final quest …
He was smiling as he reached the long, smooth, grassy hill where the cliff path twisted suddenly straight. He watched the fires grow, his rags fluttering in the wind … grinned …
Broaditch finally thought he heard a crash sufficient to mark the end of the cart, but much later and far, far, below, so he couldn’t be sure …
Alienor was there now, close enough to see the hint of his big face. She said nothing.
“Mama,” Tikla said, “I’m so tired …”
Broaditch, aware of her, said nothing either. Finally, one leg still dangling down, he raised his heavy shoulders and shrugged.
* * *
He saw the fiend forms dark against the long, hot blaze, rushing up at him. Readied to will himself motionless, sorting over his spells for the purpose, then starting one so that the shadowy figures were turning, standing, reacting as he came bellowing vehemently, the wagon leaping high and wild, still gaining speed until suddenly (soundless to him) it was gone from underneath (he had no perception of the wall-like ridge that ripped it away) and he was flying (much to his satisfaction), sailing over the flames in a flash of bright and terrific heat that lit loose ends of his rags so that he trailed fluttering sparks as he sat comfortably on the wind, passing over the upturned faces (none of which had seen the cart anymore than he’d seen the rock), and then he was caught by a great, clawed hand that plucked him from the air and shook, bounced him violently as his breath struggled and arms gestured magically, fighting this lord of devils, spinning and rocking up and down in the sure grip of what he didn’t know was a gnarled treelimb, voice finally bursting forth again so that the astonished audience, peering into the night, heard the flying figure’s thunderings pounding rhythmically from midair as rows of them fell on their knees. Finally he felt, with satisfaction, the fierce grip impotently relent and drop him to soft earth where he incredibly stood on bony, vibrating legs and declaimed at them with titanic authority:
“I have come,” he roared, shaking their very bones and the trees and ground too, “I have come among you!! I have come to take hold of all that is mine!!”
XX
Howtlande looked with smug pleasure at his raiders as they marched (in semi-order, he had to admit, but at least with a look of purpose and force) across the misty morning meadows beside a gently twisting trickle of stream under the hot, sweet sky. He chewed a strip of pork rind as his mule tap-stepped almost delicately along.
When I came down that mountain after defeat, he was musing, I was one man alone and now I’m over a hundred strong and tomorrow, who can tell?
He squinted above the dry-looking treetops at a high battlement. Just as Finlot had reported, there was a castle in this rich riverbottom valley — he hadn’t completely registered the significance of the dwindling streams and browning, heat-shocked countryside. He was concerned with food, weapons, horseflesh … Finlot had seen few armed men. All these strongholds, he knew, were depleted by war and disease.
Glanced at bushy-haired Lohengrin who was walking ahead beside the dour knight. Decided he’d buy the young princeling with bits of his own history an inch at a time.
Lohengrin was frowning at the ground — sharp, dark face downtilted. He was leafing through memories, testing connections … feelings … repeating his name to see what that might bring to the surface. His wound had healed and the scarred tissue was less red. But it always ached.
He felt trapped, somehow, and tense. There was nowhere else for him, he believed, so here he was … But once there was a real clue, a clear road, he vowed, he’d follow it …
He glanced at the grim knight beside him, in grayish, pitted armor.
“Sir,” he said and the fellow cocked a long, hooked eyebrow in his direction, “what would you make of the name Lohengrin?”
The knight took it in, showed nothing.
“Why ask you?” he finally responded. The sun pressed steadily on the dry earth. Tree shadows flickered over them.
“I wish to learn things concerning him.”
“Do you mean to meet him in single combat?”
“Is he a strong fighter?”
“He’s known to be. And a vicious bastard, so they say.”
They had just passed through a row of close-spaced poplar trees and the big, rambling castle lay just ahead. A few ragged peasants were already fleeing the half-parched fields, a plough still falling, the pale, shirtlike garments flapping around bare, skinny limbs.
The raiders spread out quickly with curses and yells. Howtlande was bellowing orders that were only partly effective.
“Come on, youngblood,” the longfaced knight at his side told him, “let’s pass the time. One way’s like another.”
They moved out at a half-trot in a jingle and clatter of arms, crossing bare, furrowed earth, fine dust billowing like smoke around their legs.
“Do you know this Lohengrin,” he called over to the other man. The line was fully extended now. They entered the ragged, chest-high, dried-out wheat that swooshed and crumbled around them. He thought how strange it looked: head and shoulders seemed to float as the wind blew long, slow brittle waves into them. They appeared to rush blindly at the looming walls as if borne by an irresistible tide. “Do you?” he repeated and the knight glanced over, eyebrow hooked.
“Never saw him,” he said. “I knew his father.”
“What?” For some reason this idea stunned him. His father. That hadn’t occurred to him — as if he’d had none … or mother either … mother … “Who?” he asked. “Who is his father?”
One of the fleeing farmers (who’d been scraping around the hopeless crop) was slow and fat and some of the fleeter raiders were all around h
im before they actually broke out of the wheat field. The serf’s round head bounced along, the rest of him covered and then his lump of hat flew off and he made (Lohengrin thought) a strange bleating oinking sound and vanished under the browned grain that shook the hot, slanting sunlight where he flopped and struggled.
They must have struck him low for I saw no blow, Lohengrin thought.
“Who is his father?” he shouted now, because the men were cheering and hooting and clashing their weapons. There was a flash in his mind: the golden hair and the sweetfaced, dark lady and in a mixed rush of anger and outrage he knew them both …
The serfs ahead, shouting and gesturing, scurried through the moatless gate and Howtlande, behind everyone on the pale mule, was yelling something hoarse and moist. Then the gate banged shut in their faces and they pulled up, panting and cursing.
“That was well-crafted,” Skalwere piped up from under the outward tilted wall. “What cunning!” He spat into the dust and watched Howtlande, whose cheeks puffed in and out around his scowl.
“Rip down the gate!” he shouted. “It’s wooden. Hack it to shreds! There’s no army here.”
“Hack it yourself, you bloated toad!” Skalwere suggested.
Some of the men fell to work with ax and sword, chipping and banging away at the thick boards.
Lohengrin was suddenly swaying, legs rigid, locked, palms pressed to his head, an incredible white, flaring pain searing the side of his skull, so violent that the massive wall before him shook and shimmered as though a wind blew empty fabric and the solid earth went cloudy and he felt a raw brightness, beating, beating in his head, pouring out through his eyes so that the sunlight mixed into one blinding perception that seemed to suspend all movement and penetrate earth, stone, all open space … himself too … felt himself, the flowing forward of his life, saw (as if all time were a flat terrain) a road and a place that was solid in all the wild, roiling mists of life, smokelike castles, towns, people, deeds … a thin road running to a solid ground (not earth), a place closed without sides, shelter without roof or walls, water without flow or wetness … his imagination briefly flailed at these images that were not pictures of anything … people without form too but solid … so firm and safe and solid …
He realized he was falling, but since no falling was possible, knowing bubbled up like warm, sunny, melting laughter and he understood that Lohengrin had melted and yet was so solid, so strong, so irreducible … the names melted and the limbs, torso, head but what was left was solid …
He landed forward, hands gripping his skull as if struck down by a blow and fell about a foot or so into the rough-set stones under the battlements, locked legs holding him almost upright, back arched, face resting on the wall as if he meant, somehow, to push himself through it, body still as the mossy granite itself. Howtlande and the others stared …
XXI
Parsival followed the rank, vaguely hinted stream under the heavy hanging trees that strained the risen moon to faint threads. The water was a cloudy gleaming he kept losing and finding again. It seemed to shift and melt away each time he tried to focus, the slippery mud splatting as he went on quickly, always backlistening, trying to feel pursuit with his tensed nerves.
He went on and on as if suspended in a flow of soundlessness, the swamp noises dying as he passed and filling in behind … the air was thick breathing in the mudreek and rot … He wondered how far they’d follow … without the thin wet luminescence he’d be lost in minutes under these massed leaves.
Suddenly he was out as if leaving a cavern: suddenly stars and deep spaces all around, the moon fading as the east (towards which he fled) brightened steadily and he glanced at the blotted wall of darkness he’d just left behind.
The slow stream was a trickle here and gleamed like polished metal. His feet dragged through the dry grasses as he crossed gentle country into clear, soothing, warm air.
He was starting to feel the clawmarks and bites that monkeylike devil had left in his flesh … and the general soreness too …
By late morning he was wincing at the sunglare, looking across the bare fields for at least a significant clump of trees where he might lie down with even minimal security. There was a spur of woods at least a mile ahead. Nothing nearer. The thread of water led there so he followed on, eyes burning with brightness, sleeplessness and the already pounding heat pressure …
It was nearly noon now. Parsival’s legs wobbled a little. He kept shutting his eyes for a few steps at a time. He went into the long line of trees and the first shade was a soothing impact.
Suppose I never find my son? he suddenly asked himself. What then? Looked behind. I doubt they’re still at my back … I need to rest … the sun flashed in pieces through the dense, stiff netting of drying leaves. What do I do next, in any case? … Save follow or be followed which I always am doing … my whole lifetime … Because I won’t go where they want … whoever they are … that’s it, isn’t it? … He almost looked around for some supernatural sign. Almost expected one. Because I once did or didn’t do something or other with the stupid Unholy Grail … Kept closing his lids. Sleep pressed at him with hunger’s aid. Because of that or something they won’t leave me in peace … they follow or lure me … I need a good plan …
He stood still and was about to stretch out when he heard the shouting and stared through the rest of the bunched line of trees until his vision ceased in an odd grayness … squinted, thinking it might be mist … no … seemed solid … He glanced back the other way across the dun-green sweep of openness … nothing there.
He went forward, staring at the dull fragments of blankness.
He couldn’t tell how far it was … was it mixed among the leaves? … Finally he put out his hand and was shocked by cool, rough hardness … stone … heard the shouting again and clash of arms.
Moved out of the trees inches from a massive, high wall and for an instant he imagined (he expected anything from them) he’d been spelldrawn back to the monastery; no, that was white stone. Came to a corner, peered up at the castle and down the sides and around … saw no troops … nothing … the sounds were coming from around the front face of the fortress and he decided to climb up and seek shelter and food.
The grooves were wide and deep and he topped the battlements in a few minutes, weary as he was. If the place were more strongly held than it appeared he could sue for protection as was custom. He looked through a narrow embrasure into the castle yard, all yellow scorched grass and hot dust. A single bony horse stood in the narrow strip of shade beside the main building where a scraggly row of trees shook spare, brittle leaves.
He went quickly along the deserted battlements, then leaned over in front and saw armed men standing in the fields and near ground while a big man on muleback gestured with a sword and yelled. Pointed up suddenly and a handful of bowmen tried their luck as Parsival saw two armored knights, one helping carry the other back from the gate, his hands pressed to his head. His son, though he didn’t know it.
An arrow chipped stone near his face and he watched the next few come in, ignored them as they zipped overhead or snapped against the wall. He was turning to look for the defenders (someone in the yard was banging a metal alarm), and then crouched, spun low to confront a tall knight in light green steel, many times mended, long mace over his shoulder. Cocked his helmeted head and spoke through the grillholes.
Voices in armor, Parsival thought, never sound human. Unless you’re inside of it …
“Well, by Christ,” the voice said.
“A meet moment for prayer,” Parsival commented.
“Whenever we meet it is.”
An arrow hummed high over them and lost itself in the courtyard where peasants and a few armed men were stirring up the dust, frantic, jerky.
Parsival straightened, starting to look amazed.
“This may pass belief,” he murmured.
“Yes.”
“Fate seems bound to fate as though by cords.” He shook his head. They
were at it again, no doubt. Looked wry. “Because you don’t even have to open that faceplate, do you?” Shook his head. An arrow hit the walltop and spun end over end. They’d strike us best, he thought, by aiming elsewhere. “Gawain,” he said. “Again.”
Saw the scene of their last meeting, vivid as a painting: the mounting smoke, the wild flames everywhere walling them in, thousands on all sides trapped and screaming, roasting, tossing away their hopeless weapons, the conquerors vast army dissolving in fire as the blaze crowned, leaped over them, sparks raining, swirling madly, the terrible charring stink, the bubbling fleshfats. Lancelot and Gawain flailing at each other through the smoke and heat, horses roll-eyed, swords ripping air and sparking iron, charging and prancing over the fallen, squirming, lost heaps of men as the vast press, fleeing, lifted Parsival up and ahead, mount and all, and bore him uphill, and looking back he had one last glimpse of the two of them, battling, sealed behind towering fireblasts, sinking into bitter haze as though hell had opened and (he thought then) welled up from the agonized heart of the world …
“Not dead,” he said. “Not dead.”
“That would have been too easy.” Gawain was leaning over the wall. “They’ll bang and hack until the fat one thinks of climbing, as you did.” Glanced over at him. “Are you part of that … amateur exhibition?”
“Not likely. How many knights have we in here?”
“We?” Gawain seemed amused and sardonically pleased “If it’s we then two’s the number. And thirty-odd peasants and suchlike. Six men-at-arms. This place is greatly depleted since it saw you last, old friend.” Flicked a well-shot shaft aside with his gauntlet. “Actually, Parse, I came here to wait for you, and haven’t I had rare luck?”
The Final Quest (The Parsival Saga Book 3) Page 10