by Tim Powers
'Oh, you saw us? He's been in my employ for years. His name's not really Gritti, by the way. It's Tobbia. I have to have a lot of agents in that area - Venice, the Vatican. And I do speak Italian. If I told you I didn't, though, I'm sure I had some good reason.' He took another step up.
'Not so fast. If he works for you, why did he and his "brothers" try to kill me the night I met you?'
'Honestly, Brian, can't you trust me? I told them to provoke a fight with you so that I'd have an excuse to speak to you and offer you the job you now have. And they weren't really trying to kill you. I'd instructed them to make the skirmish look convincing, but to deliver no real, damaging blows. Besides, I knew you could take care of yourself. Now come on.'
He got three steps higher before the Irishman's hand on his shoulder stopped him again. 'What if I'd delivered a real, damaging blow to one of them? And what do you -
'If you'd killed one of them,' Aurelianus interrupted impatiently, 'I'd simply have phrased my proposal to you differently. Instead of praising your tolerant restraint in a fight, I'd have complimented you on your decisive, no-nonsense reactions. It doesn't matter. There are much more important -
'It matters to me. And what do you mean, you knew I could take care of myself? I thought that evening was the first time you'd seen or heard of me. Why did you go to so much trouble to get me here, when there must have been a dozen guys in Vienna alone that could do the job better than I can? Damn it, I want some explanations that don't raise a hundred more questions. I -
Aurelianus sighed. 'I will,' he said, 'explain all when we get to my room.
Duffy squinted suspiciously at him. 'All?' The old man looked vaguely offended as they resumed their ascent of the stairs. 'I'm a man of my word, Brian.'
Aurelianus' room at the Zimmermann Inn looked very like his room in Venice. It was a clutter of tapestries, books, scrolls, jewelled daggers, colored liquids in glass jars, odd sextant-like devices, and a cabinet of good wines. The curtains were drawn against the morning brightness, and the chamber was inefficiently lit by a half-dozen candles. The air was close and musty.
'Sit down,' he said, waving Duffy to the only chair free of piled clothing. Aurelianus lifted from a small box another of his dried snakes, bit the end of the tail off and lit the thing in a candle flame. Soon he was seated on the floor, leaning against a bookcase and puffing smoke contentedly.
'I'll try to start from some sort of beginning,' he said. 'I've mentioned that this brewery is, in a sense, the heart of the West, and the tomb of an ancient king whom your Vikings are not entirely incorrect in calling Balder. Suleiman is the spearhead of the eastern half of the world, which is trying to strike at us now, while we're in a state of discord and weakness.'
'Which is because the Western King isn't well...?' Duffy hazarded.
'Right. Or else he's not well because his kingdom is unsteady. It's the same thing, really. Cure one and you've cured the other. And he'll be strengthened and renewed in six months, come the drawing of the Dark. Suleiman, knowing that, is going to try to destroy this brewery, and take Vienna into the bargain, before then. Before long Ibrahim will make some efforts, I expect, to send supernatural combatants down on us, but the elf-signs and faces on the walls should guard us from that. See that Shrub keeps those markings from being cleaned off.
'Anyway, this is a... dire pass we've come to. The East has flexed her sword-arm against a number of our eastern outposts, and is now limbering up for a lunge directly toward the heart, while the West languishes in defenseless chaos. Observing the seeds of this situation many years ago, our Fisher King made a tremendous request of the gods. God, if you prefer the singular.' He took a long, popping draw on the snake, and puffed out a startling succession of smoke-rings.
Duffy pressed his lips together and shifted in his seat. 'What request?'
'To return, for a while, the greatest leader the West ever had. To loan us one hero from the domains of death long enough to parry this eastern threat. The request was granted.. .and the man was born again, dressed in flesh
once more.'
'Uh,' Duffy said hesitantly, 'who is he?'
'He's remembered by a number of names. The one you'd know best is Arthur. King Arthur.'
'Oh no!' Duffy burst out. 'Wait a moment - are you trying to tell me there's truth in Lothario Mothertongue's babblings? All this round-table-and-Camelot stuff he's always spouting? Listen, if he's King Arthur, the one these fool gods have sent to save us, the Turks will have taken Vienna by the end of next week.'
'There is some truth in his babbling,' Aurelianus said. 'But no, relax, he's not Arthur. He must be a powerfully sensitive clairvoyant, though, to have grasped the situation unaided and come directly to Vienna. It's very sad, really.' He shrugged. 'Many are called, but few are chosen.'
Suddenly Duffy suspected where all this was leading. Well, he thought, let the old bastard say it. 'So who is Arthur?' he asked carelessly. 'You?'
'Good heavens, no.' The old man laughed and took another long pull on the snake, making the head glow nearly white. 'I'm coming to it; let me unravel the story in order. It was my job to find this reincarnated Arthur, for I knew - by certain signs and meteorological phenomena - when he was born, but not where. I began searching the western lands for him about twenty years ago, when he'd have been in his mid-twenties. I found traces, psychic footprints, of him in a number of countries, but the long years passed -'Did you find him?' Duffy asked.
'Well, yes, to omit a lengthy but fascinating tale.'
'And,' said Duffy tiredly, feeling like a participant in some ritual dialogue, 'where is he?'
Aurelianus puffed on the snake and stared curiously at the Irishman. 'Sitting in the chair across from me.'
'You mean me?'
'Yes. Sorry.'
The Irishman started snickering, and it built up to a laughing fit that lasted half a minute, at the end of which time his eyes were wet with tears and he'd begun to twist the straw plug out of a bottle of Spanish red wine. 'This is certainly my week,' he observed, a little hysterically. 'First those northmen decide I'm Sigmund, and now you tell me I'm Arthur.'
'They're two names for the same person. Didn't you ever even wonder about the parallel between Arthur demonstrating his right to the throne by being the only man able to pull the sword from the stone, and Sigmund proving his by being the only one who could pull Odin's sword out of the Branstock Oak?' He nodded. 'Obviously there's another true clairvoyant in Denmark somewhere, who sent Bugge and his men here so unerringly.'
'God help us,' Duffy said, adding with some sarcasm, 'Were they correct also, then, in assuming you're Odin?'
Aurelianus narrowed his eyes mysteriously, then relaxed and grinned. 'Well, no. That was an excess of religious enthusiasm on their part. Helpful, though.'
Duffy felt vaguely nauseated, and blamed it on the snake fumes. He'd got the plug out of the bottle, but now couldn't imagine drinking any of the wine. I don't care if I was Arthur in that lake-dream last night, he thought, I'm Brian Duffy now and I'll not have my identity usurped by some old dead king. He looked at the litter surrounding him in the artificially dimmed room. I'm not a part of this morbid, dusty, sorcerous world, he told himself insistently.
'That, of course,' Aurelianus was saying, 'is why the dwarfs and mountain creatures protected you - they knew who you were, even though you didn't yourself. And that's why Ibrahim tried to prevent your arrival here by sending winged afrits, and, having his lackey Zapolya send conventional assassins, to intercept you. When he failed to kill you he tried to bribe you over to the eastern side. The offer of the sultanate, I believe, was genuine.'
The little black-clad man hopped to his feet, opened a cabinet and groped in its dark interior. 'Here,' he said softly, lifting out a long, straight sword and handing it to the Irishman. Duffy stared at it; it was longer and heavier than the swords he was used to, and the hilt, above a grip long enough for two hands, was a simple crosspiece.
Memories now rushed vehem
ently through his mind, uncontrollable. Calad Bolg, he thought, the sword remembered in the legends as Excalibur. He recognized it also from his dream - it was the sword he'd ordered his attendant to throw into the lake - and from other dreams he'd had during his life, all of which he'd forgotten upon awakening, but which came back to him now. I've killed
quite a few men with this, he thought, many long years ago. I killed Mordred, my son, with it.
'You recognize it.' There was only a hint of a question-mark at the end of Aurelianus' sentence.
'Of course,' Duffy nodded sadly. 'But what about Brian Duffy?'
'You're still Brian Duffy. As much as you ever were. But you're Arthur, too, and that kind of outshines everything else. Brandy and water tastes more like brandy than water, after all.'
'1 suppose so.' He hefted the sword and tried a ponderous cut-and-thrust, chopping a notch in the cabinet. 'It's awful heavy,' he said, 'and I like a fuller guard. Swordplay has changed since the days when this was forged. They... we...wore heavy armor then, and swords weren't used for defense.'
'It's a good sword,' Aurelianus protested. -
'Certainly, to hang on a wall or chop trees down with. But if I were going to use this in combat, I'd want the blade narrowed and shortened by at least a foot, the grip shortened by five inches, and a solid bellguard welded around this crosspiece.'
'Are you out of your mind? That's the finest sword ever made. I don't think you could shorten the blade - that isn't everyday steel, you know.'
'I remember how well it hews armor. But we never parried in those days, just traded axe-type blows until one guy's armor gave way. I'd take a swing at someone now with this, and he'd disengage and put his point in my nose before I'd even begun to swing mine back in line. I think I'd be more comfortable with a regular rapier, thanks. Save this for scything wheat.'
Aurelianus was outraged. 'This is the most foolish thing I've ever heard. It's Calad Bolg, damn it! Show some respect.'
Duffy nodded, acknowledging the reproach. 'Sorry. I'll
take it out back and try a few passes at a fence post.'
'Fine. In about an hour we'll ride out for the King.'
Duffy nodded and turned to leave, then halted and spun to face Aurelianus again. 'You.. .wore your hair longer then. And you had a beard.'
The old man laughed softly and nodded. 'Your memory is clearing, Arthur.'
'Yes.' At the door Duffy paused, and said over his shoulder, 'You used to be a much calmer man, Merlin.'
'Times were simpler then,' Aurelianus nodded sadly.
The Irishman slowly picked his way back down the stairs. He felt as if the walls and roofs of his mind were being shaken, and falling away here and there to reveal an older landscape. But those walls and hallways are what's Brian Duffy, he thought mournfully. And now that I can remember both lives, I can see I've had much more enjoyment and relaxation as Duffy than I did as Arthur.
At the bottom of the stairs he stopped. I may be... this primordial king, he thought, but by God I'll live in the crumbling personality that is Brian Duffy. And I won't carry this sword; the very sight and feel of it are impacts against those poor mind-walls.
He bounded back up the stairs and rapped on Aurelianus' door with the sword's pommel. The sorcerer pulled the door open, surprised to see him back so soon. 'What is it?' he asked.
'I... I don't want this sword. I'll get another somewhere. Here.' Aurelianus just stared at him. 'Look,' Duffy insisted, almost tearfully. 'You'd better take it, or
pitch it into the canal - or that moonlit lake next time I come across it,' he added, half to himself.
At that Aurelianus paled and reeled back. 'What? What moonlit lake, Llyr help us, it's only April! Tell me.'
The Irishman was surprised by this response. 'Don't get excited,' he said. 'To tell you the truth, I think it's probably just an alcohol-hallucination. I'm sure it's nothing to -'Tell me.'
- get upset about.. .Oh, very well. Twice on, uh, Friday, in the middle of the day, I saw very clearly - even felt the cold wind of it - a wide lake under a full moon. And then -,
'Who were you with?' Aurelianus snapped. 'You must have been with some doomed or dying person, for whom death's door was already ajar.'
Duffy was impressed and uneasy. 'Yes, I was. Epiphany's father, as a matter of fact.'
The sorcerer looked a little relieved. 'I hoped it was something like that. What you. were seeing in these.. .visions?. . .was -'It was where King Arthur died,' Duffy said.
'How did you know that?' exclaimed the sorcerer, upset again.
'Because last night I saw it again, much clearer and for a longer time. I was a wounded, dying king being carried to the marge of this lake. I had one of my few remaining retainers throw my sword - this sword - into the water, and he said a hand rose from the water to catch it. Then there was a boat I was being lifted into, and my sister was in it, and I told her our son - our son? - had killed me.'
The wizard was gaping at him in dismay. 'Even having remembered Arthur's life, you shouldn't yet be able to see the end of it. Where were you when you saw this one, and who were you with?'
Duffy didn't want to admit having stolen a cupful of the Dark, so he just shrugged and said, 'I was alone. In the dining room after everyone went to bed.'
Aurelianus fell into the one uncluttered chair. 'This is terrible,' he muttered. 'Something is fast approaching,
something your mind can recognize only in terms of that lakeside memory. The last time this thing came, you see, that's the form it took.' He looked up. 'In other words, the spirit that is Arthur will shortly be returning to.. .death, Avalon, the afterlife.'
Duffy raised his eyebrows. 'Where does that leave me?'
'I don't know, damn it. Probably dead, since of course when you die his spirit would automatically be forced to go.'
'Great. Couldn't Arthur make his exit and leave me alive?'
'Choose to leave, you mean, without being evicted from your body by your death? I suppose so. Though you'd probably die anyway, of psychic shock from the mental amputation.'
The Irishman was not as frightened as he would have been if he didn't know that last night's vision had been -prompted more by the cup of Dark than the imminency of death, Arthur's or his own or both; but this was still far from reassuring news. 'Well, why the hell don't you know any of this?' he demanded angrily. 'You're a sorcerer, aren't you, a wizard, a witch-doctor, a scrutinizer of chicken entrails? Fine! Haul out your crystal ball and take a look! See if I survive all this.'
'You have no idea how much I wish I could,' Aurelianus said, in quiet contrast to Duffy's shouting. 'The fact, though, is that all auguries and portents are blind to our current situation and the coming battle. I don't like it at all - it appalls me to think that Zapolya could have been so near and so well-informed without my having any indication of it; and to realize that he could be anywhere right now with, not impossibly, a force of armed men at his disposal. You can see why we've got to get the King safely inside immediately.'
The wizard shook his head, staring at the old sword.
'For fifteen hundred years all the precognitive arts have been gradually dimming out, like vision as twilight falls; they're all based, you see, on the old Chaldean principles of astrology, which relied on the existence of predictable courses, a predetermined world history. And they did work well for thousands of years. But in the last fifteen centuries the equations of predestination have been increasingly fouled by an element of... .randomness, or something I can only perceive as randomness...' His voice trailed off. His eyes were on the sword, but his gaze had turned inward.
The Irishman thought about it, then shrugged. 'I'm afraid I'm on the side of the randomness. The idea of predestination, lack of free will, disgusts me. Astrology, in fact, has always disgusted me. And I think you picked the wrong picture to illustrate your point - it doesn't sound to me like a man's vision dimming as night approaches, so much as an owl's when the sun rises.'
Aurelianus' fac
e slowly wrinkled itself into a wry smile. 'I'm afraid,' he admitted, 'your analogy is better. Ibrahim and I, and Bacchus, and your mountain guides, and your winged adversaries of the other night, are creatures of the long, brutal night of the world. You and the Fisher King are creatures of the coming day, and you can't really feel at home in this pre-dawn dimness. In any case, to return to my point, though the prescient arts are deteriorating, they've still got a clear century or two of effectiveness left. I, in common with a lot of other beings, am accustomed to relying on them as you do on your eyes and ears. But in this conflict, this problem of Vienna and the beer and Arthur and Suleiman, they're completely in the dark, blinded.'
Duffy raised his eyebrows. 'And what is so bright about any light here that it should so dazzle all you cellar-denizens?'
Aurelianus was getting annoyed. Don't run it into the ground,' he snapped; 'It's because you are or will be centrally involved in it all. You're an anomaly, a phenomenon not allowed for by the natural laws, and therefore you and your actions are unreadable ciphers to the old natural magics.'
At this the Irishman brightened. 'Really? Then you don't have any idea of what I'm going to do?'
'Well, I do have clues,' Aurelianus allowed. 'Indications. But in the main, no - I can't see you or the things you affect.'
Duffy reached across a table and with two fingers snagged the bottle he'd opened earlier. He took a liberal sip from the neck and put it back. 'Good enough. I'll be downstairs whenever you want to leave.' He picked his way around the ornate obstacles and again left the room.
* * *
Chapter Fourteen
'Epiphany!' he yelled when he reached the dining room. 'Damn it, Epiphany!' There's no reason for me to obey that old monkey, he thought. Why should I trust him? He's never had my genuine interests at heart; he's always just used me like a chess-piece in his filthy. wizardly schemes. Trusting Merlin is like giving a migrant scorpion a lift inside your hat.