The Sword of Aradel

by Alexander Key

  Lights flashed in his face. A man shouted, “Put down that sword, you fool! We’re the police!”

  Even then he might have charged, for the word meant nothing to him. But Merra’s urgent cry stopped him in time, and he made no resistance when the men with badges closed in on him.

  8

  Prisoners

  BRIAN PROTESTED HOTLY WHEN THEY TOOK HIS sword and equipment away, then became grimly silent when he realized the uselessness of argument. He and Merra were herded to a roadway in the park and forced into the rear of a wheeled machine. After a bewildering ride into the city, they stopped at a towering building and were taken upstairs to a large untidy room full of noise and hurrying people.

  His anger broke out anew when a man at a desk began questioning him over and over, and refused to accept his replies. The man was an impatient person with a broad, red face who was called Sergeant Sykes, and he spoke a kind of English so different from his own that understanding was anything but easy.

  “We’ll start all over again,” Sergeant Sykes rapped out. “Now listen carefully. I want your full name, your age, and your father’s name and address. Is that clear?”

  “But—but I have given thee my name—not once but thrice! It is Brian. Hast thou not ears to hear?”

  The broad face of Sergeant Sykes became a darker red. “Cut out that silly lingo and give me a straight answer! I asked for your full name and your address. How long is it going to take you to give it to me?”

  Brian glanced at Merra. Her face had tightened with worry and fury. His hands clenched. “What right hast thou to question us and hold us prisoner? We are not thine enemies! Where is my sword and our belongings? I demand that thou returnest them and release us!”

  “Shut up!” The chill eye of their questioner turned icy. “You’ll be lucky to be released in the next ten years if you don’t get wise and cooperate. Do you have any idea of the spot you’re in?”

  “Spot?”

  “Yes, spot! You’re in real trouble! Joe,” he spoke to the uniformed man who had been silently watching the questioning, “bring me that junk you found on these kids.”

  The man—it was one of the guards who had captured them—stepped through a door and returned presently with the sword and scabbard, the knives and pouches they had worn at their belts, and a curious metal object on the order of the ones some of the men in the room were wearing.

  “You won’t believe this,” said the guard named Joe, “but the boys have checked out this stuff, and it’s real. The sword and scabbard are museum pieces! Lord knows what they’re worth, but Brady figures the jewels alone would bring fifty grand on today’s market.”

  Sergeant Sykes whistled softly. A small crowd began to collect around them.

  “And that’s not all,” Joe hastened on. “Look at this!” He opened the pouches and dumped their golden contents upon the desk. “We’ve no way of knowing if the coins are authentic, but they are pure gold, and Brady says they might be a thousand years old. If so, they’re collector’s items and worth plenty.”

  Men fingered the sword and the gold, then looked at Brian and Merra. Sergeant Sykes said, “And the pistol, Joe. What about it?”

  “We picked it up at the girl’s feet,” the guard replied. “Dippy’s boys—the two that were able to talk before the ambulance came—say the pistol belongs to the girl and that she was shooting at them with it.” He shrugged. “Could be. The tough chicks are coming young these days. Anyway, we can’t prove it by the fingerprints. They’re smudged.”

  “H’m. Any word from the hospital?”

  “Not yet. But I’ll tell you this, sarge. All five of that bunch were badly cut, and the interne on the second ambulance said he doubted one would live.”

  “So!” The thin mouth in the broad face became even thinner. Sergeant Sykes looked at Brian, then at Merra. “What a nice pair you are! Illegal possession of a firearm. Assault with deadly weapons. Attempted murder—and it’ll be murder if that punk dies. And on top of it all, this—” His hand touched the sword and the glittering coins. “Probably grand theft.” Abruptly the hand slapped the desk, so hard that the coins jumped. “Let’s have it! Where’d you steal this stuff?”

  It was several seconds before Brian could decipher enough of what he had heard to understand the accusations.

  “Thou callest us thieves?” he said slowly.

  “If you didn’t steal it, then how did you get it?”

  Brian fought to control himself. This cold, unbelieving, unfeeling world was almost worse in its way than Aradel under Albericus. In a voice that shook a little from his rising fury, he managed to say, “The sword, ’tis mine by right of combat, and fairly won! The gold, a gift from the Dryads to help in our quest!”

  “Huh? Dry—what? You sure you didn’t find it all in a garbage can?” The thin mouth curled in a sneer. “Phooey! I don’t know where you got those trick costumes and that phony talk, but you’re nothing but a pair of thieving punks and worse, in my opinion, than that bunch you cut up.” Suddenly he glared at Merra. “You! Where did you get that pistol?”

  “Explain thyself!” she cried back. “I know not what a pistol be!”

  “Nuts! You’re a lying little witch. The weapon was found at your feet, and you were seen using it. Any kid your age who runs around nights packing a pistol—”

  “Enough!” Brian exploded. “She telleth no falsehood!”

  Before anyone could even guess what he was about to do, his hand had streaked out faster than the eye could follow and closed on his sword. The sword flashed from the scabbard and he leaped quickly back, giving himself room to use it.

  “Now hear ye!” he yelled, his voice drowning out the sudden shouts and exclamations as men fell away from him, most of them instantly producing weapons like the thing called a pistol. Fury made him oblivious to any possible danger. “Hear ye, and hear ye well! We speak truth, yet ye mind us not! What manner of men be ye? We come as strangers, seeking a thing long lost, and are at once beset by thieves. We find refuge in the park, but they follow and attack. Verily, we are forced to fight for our lives! Yet ye swallow the tale of those scoundrels and thieves, and hear not the truth! What manner of men—”

  “Put down that sword, you jackass!” Sergeant Sykes roared, kicking his chair aside.

  “Give me thy word that we may go in peace, and I will put it away.”

  “I’ll put you away, you thieving punk! I’ll put you away for good!”

  Brian saw the man’s hand swing up, pointing the pistol thing at him. His blade, flicking quickly from side to side to hold a half dozen men at a distance, became a sudden blur. The pistol thing exploded and flew off across the room. Sergeant Sykes, now white of face, fell back holding his hand.

  “I don’t believe it!” someone whispered. “The way that young idiot handles a sword! If we don’t stop him—”

  Brian was momentarily startled by the weapon’s explosion, for it was much louder than the other explosions in the park had been. For the first time he thought of the burning sting in his left arm, then instantly forgot it as more men erupted into the room. They approached him warily, then suddenly rushed him when an opened blanket was flung in his face.

  The sword was caught in the blanket like a fish in a net, and before he could free it they were upon him. He lost the sword but squirmed out of their grasp, kicking, fighting, hurling anything he could get his hands on. A few feet away Merra screamed her hate and laid about her with a heavy stick she had snatched from a desk. “Rotten wretches!” she yelled shrilly. “Rogues! Dogs! Whelps! A malediction on thee all!”

  A woman’s voice, high and clear and sharp as a razor, brought all action to an abrupt end. Brian, breathing rapidly, turned with the others and stared open-mouthed at the commanding Amazon who had come into the room. Tall and muscular, she was the sort, he knew instinctively, who would have definite opinions that might turn out to be troublesome.

  “Brawling with minors, are you?” she said icily. “Sergeant
Sykes, what is the meaning of this?”

  Sergeant Sykes did not reply. He was leaning against the wall, eyes closed, holding a bloody handkerchief about a wounded hand. It was the guard named Joe who spoke.

  “Mrs. Mayfield,” he began, “there was a gang fight in the park—”

  “Lieutenant Mayfield,” she corrected him. “And I will remind you again that I am in complete charge of juvenile offenders. They are to be brought to my office as soon as you have their names.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I—we thought you were off duty this evening.”

  “I was at night court. What’s wrong with Sergeant Sykes?”

  “That young rascal yonder cut him with a sword. I should warn you, ma’am; he’s a ferocious devil—he ought to be handcuffed. The sergeant was just trying to get the facts about him when he went berserk. He’s already cut up Dippy Scarri’s gang and put them in the hospital. Three are in bad shape. One may die.”

  “H’m. See that the sergeant gets medical attention. And bring that pair into my office along with the sword and all the other exhibits. But no handcuffs—unless the kids cause more trouble.”

  Brian was propelled down a hall with Merra and thrust into a much smaller room containing a desk piled with papers and records, several chairs and a littered table, and some cabinets against a wall. He and Merra were given chairs at the table, facing the stern Amazon on the other side. The guard named Joe made room on the table for the sword and the other things, then gave a careful account of all that had happened, and took his seat near the door.

  For a minute the big woman studied the objects curiously. She examined the sword, touched the gold and the paper money received at the eating place, and suddenly picked up a large piece of chalk from Merra’s pouch.

  “A strange assortment, this. A rare sword studded with valuable gems. Old gold, modern money, and a piece of what looks like natural chalk. I’ve heard they have it around Dover.” Abruptly she looked up, and in her clear, cold voice demanded, “What are you doing with a piece of natural chalk?”

  Brian glanced at Merra. For the first time since they had arrived in this unknown land, there was a hint of mischief in her eyes.

  “The chalk, good lady? We travel with it. And ’tis from the valley of the Loire, not Dover.”

  Lieutenant Mayfield stiffened slightly. Obviously it was an answer she neither expected nor wanted.

  “I will have no nonsense from either of you,” she bit out icily. “Nor will I stand for lies or evasions.” She paused, then said, “The chalk is very curious, though unimportant. But the sword and the gold must be accounted for. Where did you get them?”

  Merra gave one of her elfin smiles. It was such a marked change from her screaming fury during the fight that Brian looked at her in surprise. She’s up to something, he told himself.

  “The gold, dear lady,” Merra said sweetly, “a gift it be from the Dryads. The sword, ’twas won in combat, even as Sir Brian hath related.”

  Again the Amazon stiffened. “Sir Brian, is it?”

  “Indeed, yes. I knighted him with mine own hand for his valor. ’Twas unfitting that he remain a mere stableboy.”

  “I see.” Lieutenant Mayfield’s smile was chilling. “And where did all this take place?”

  “In Aradel, dear lady, whence we came.”

  “Aradel? Where is that?”

  “’Tis a fair kingdom, near Aquitaine.”

  “I see,” the Amazon said again, her chiseled face quite blank. “You came from Aradel, where you knighted this Brian and were given gold by the Dryads. Do you know what the Dryads were?”

  Merra smiled. “Of course. But dost thou?”

  “The Dryads,” Lieutenant Mayfield snapped, her voice rising, “were mythical creatures of the past. They never existed except in the minds of silly girls like you! How old are you, Merra?”

  “As old as thou art inside, dear lady, and mayhap older, if ignorance be a sign of youth. It doth pain me to hear thee declare the nonexistence of mine own kind, for all things die with the death of belief. But if the Dryads exist not, then I be not here—for I be of that strain myself.”

  She turned gaily, her green eyes dancing with mischief. “Sir Brian, wilt thou pinch me? I am beginning to have doubts of mine own reality.”

  Obligingly Brian pinched her. “Ouch!” she squealed. “Verily, I am real!”

  “And verily,” the Amazon snapped, bringing her big hand down hard on the table, “I have had enough of this nonsense! I don’t know whether you are playacting or suffering from delusions, but from now on you will give me proper answers in proper English. If you are so sick in the head that you cannot do that, we’ll have to put you in an institution. In either case, your parents must be informed. Who are they? What is their telephone number?”

  Merra shook her head. “We be orphans. As for this thing thou callest a telephone—what be that?”

  “Don’t pretend you don’t know what a phone is!” the big woman retorted in disgust.

  The guard named Joe said, “She’s trying to put you on, lieutenant. They gave us the same yarn about the pistol—pretended they’d never seen one before.”

  “If thou wantest not lies, why scornest truth?” Merra said sweetly. “Look you, Sir Brian hath a hole in his sleeve! And be that not a stain of blood around it? Prithee, what strange manner of weapon—”

  Brian had noticed neither the hole nor the dark stain on the green fabric, but now he hurriedly rolled up his sleeve and saw the long mark on his skin, with drying blood around it. At the sight of it the guard leaped up to examine the arm.

  “That’s a bullet burn,” he muttered, scowling. “But it doesn’t prove anything—except that there may be another pistol we haven’t found. These crazy kids are putting on some kind of an act. Now, all this stuff they stole …”

  “They lifted it from a collection,” Lieutenant Mayfield bit out with sudden decision. “It has to be that. Joe, check the files and see if anyone has reported the loss of a valuable sword and some old gold coins. And while you are about it, call the Tate Museum and find out if anything is missing from their arms exhibit. That old doctor what’s his name could tell you.”

  “You mean that kooky guy they were laughing about a few years ago because he believed in time travel?”

  “That’s the one. I remember now. His name’s Legrande.”

  A small light flickered at the back of Brian’s mind, but before it could illuminate a recent corner of memory, several things happened within seconds. A stack of papers, that had been thrust aside to make room for the sword and the gold, abruptly fell to the floor. Brian did not see how Merra managed to get them off the table, but he glimpsed her small hands darting over them as they fell, and he heard the quick snap of her fingers.

  As flame shot up from under the edge of the table, the Amazon screamed and Merra vanished.

  It was only because he had been expecting something to happen that Brian was able to keep his presence of mind and act swiftly. A hurried movement of his hand swept most of the small objects on the table into a pouch. As Lieutenant Mayfield, surprisingly disorganized, leaped up shrilling “Fire! Fire!” he grabbed his sword and scabbard with one hand and all their possessions he could carry with the other, and darted for the door. He barely managed to slip out before the uniformed Joe, who had started down the hall, whirled and rushed back.

  Joe almost collided with him, but actually failed to notice him in the excitement. Instinctively Brian turned left, for the hall to the right was suddenly full of people attracted by the cries. But he had taken less than a dozen steps when he realized that he and Merra could never leave the building from any point ahead. This section of the hall was a dead end.

  He stopped and glanced quickly back, wondering where Merra was, but the sight of two uniformed men rushing toward him drove him through the nearest open door. It slammed shut behind him, and he whirled as Merra abruptly became visible. She didn’t manage it easily, shimmering as Nysa did, but appeared all a
t once as if the power that kept her invisible had failed.

  “Whew!” she gasped, struggling weakly to lock the door. “That’s the longest I’ve ever held it … thirty-six seconds—Oops!” She sank down on the floor in evident exhaustion.

  Brian dropped the things he was carrying and leaped back to the door as someone in the hall banged against it and rattled the knob. The small locking mechanism was unfamiliar, but Merra must have given it the correct turn for the door held.

  “Open up!” a stern voice ordered. “You can’t go anywhere—this is the only way out!”

  Merra found the strength to cry, “Fie on thee! And a plague of warts!”

  Her response was cause for astonishment, for there were exclamations in the hall and a man said, “But that’s impossible! She can’t be in there! I was just coming out of the lab myself when I heard the lieutenant cry ‘fire,’ and I grabbed the extinguisher off the wall here and ran across and put it out. I saw everything that happened. The girl was in the lieutenant’s office when the fire started and she couldn’t possibly—”

  “I don’t get it,” came the voice of the guard named Joe. “I saw it all myself. The only person that ran into the lab was that crazy fool with the sword.”

  “And not so crazy, if you ask me,” said the first man. “After what I’ve seen—”

  “No one asked your opinion,” snapped the icicle voice of Lieutenant Mayfield. “If that rotten little devil slipped in there under your noses, it was because you were not minding your business! Merra, open this door immediately, or I’ll break it down!”

  “Thou needest not break it,” Merra called sweetly. “Verily, I be sure ’twould fall if thou wouldst but only lean against it!”

  The only reply was a furious banging on the outer panel that caused Brian to wonder how long the door would hold, even though it seemed to be made of steel. This place was entirely unlike the other offices, which had glass partitions and wooden doors. What mysteries were conducted in here he could not guess, for there were many pictures of unpleasant-looking people clipped to wires, and on one side was a black alcove where a red light burned.