“I just came out,” Janie said, “to thank you.”
Alys flinched from the sarcasm. “For what? For organizing that terrifically successful little expedition? For nearly breaking your virtue wand? For just being me?” The fights between Alys and Janie were the most spectacular in the Hodges-Bradley family. They usually took opposite sides of any debate, but tonight Alys didn’t even feel like arguing. The hero had blown it again.
“For saving us from that bobcat-thing.” Janie looked at her consideringly and frowned. “Lighten up, Alys. We’re all okay; that’s what’s important, isn’t it? We all made it. Of course”—she waggled her bandaged thumb with a grimace—“I probably have rabies, but that’s beside the point.”
It was a minute before Alys understood, and then she lost her breath a little. Janie was making a joke.
“You know, Janie,” she said, after a moment, “sometimes you impress me.”
“Sometimes,” said Janie matter-of-factly, “I impress myself. Now come inside.”
FIVE
Charles Loses His Temper
The phone call came during breakfast the next morning. Alys flapped a silencing hand at the other three and then stuck a finger in her free ear, trying to concentrate on the voice barely audible above long-distance buzz.
“Darling, we just heard about the quake… . It’s ten o’clock at night here… .“A burst of static interrupted.
“We’re all okay. How are you guys?” Alys shouted back, glaring at Charles who was tugging on the phone cord, asking, “Is it Mom? Can I talk to her? It’s Mom, isn’t it?”
Another burst of static. Then:
“… just fine, darling. But tomorrow we’re starting with the tour group into the Tanen Range. The problem is, we won’t be near a phone until Sunday at the earliest. And, sweetheart, frankly, I’m a little worried. What if you should need us? After that quake …”
“Uh …” said Alys. She pulled the phone cord away from Charles and began to twist it. “Uh …”
“Just say the word, hon, and we won’t go. Or if you like, I can arrange for you all to stay with Aunt Eleanore. I should never have left you alone with the kids.”
Alys looked at “the kids.” Two pairs of blue eyes and one pair of black-fringed purple looked back steadily. She took a deep breath.
“Mom, I can take care of them, honest. And it’s not as if you could stop another quake from coming, or—or stop anything, even if you were here. So just don’t worry. Nothing’s going to happen between now and Sunday.”
The rest of the conversation dealt with how to get Charles to wear a clean shirt every day, and whether they had hired elephants or a jeep to take them into the jungle, and how was the rabbit. Alys hung up with a now-familiar tightening in her stomach. She thought she had done the right thing. But all that day, even when she was supposed to be doing plane geometry at school, she kept remembering the way one pair of purple eyes had rolled when she said nothing was going to happen before Sunday. And thinking about that, she made a tentative decision.
After school Claudia rode off on her bike to find comfort with the vixen, and Janie shut herself up in her room, rebuffing Alys’s attempts to speak with her. Charles went out alone and returned several hours later, favoring his right leg. He hurried by Alys and up the stairs.
Alys put down her magazine and her apple and listened suspiciously. Above, water crashed into a bathtub.
“Charles?” she said, mounting the stairs and tapping at the bathroom door. “Charles, I know you’re in there. Answer me.”
There was a blithe sound, as of singing in the shower.
“Charles, you unlock this door this minute! Or else!”
A pause, then a click. Slowly the door opened, revealing her brother. He was filthy and scratches covered his arms and face. He held a bottle of hydrogen peroxide.
“So all right,” he said. “So me and John Divola took our bikes out on the old river road. So I had a little accident—”
Alys restrained herself from scolding, and merely asked, as she helped him mop up blood and apply peroxide, “How did it happen?”
Charles frowned. “I … I don’t know. Something ran across the road and I fell off trying not to hit it.” He looked at Alys and shook his head. “It was—oh, this is crazy, but for some reason I thought it looked like a kid dressed up in a lizard suit. But that doesn’t make any sense. Does it?”
Alys dropped her eyes a moment. Almost to herself she murmured, “I don’t know, anymore.” She remained that way a moment, thinking. One thing she did know was that her tentative decision was no longer tentative.
“All right,” she added briskly, looking back up at Charles. “You’re mostly clean. Except—here.” She swabbed a washcloth across his forehead. “Hmmm.” She swabbed again, using soap. “Funny. It won’t come off. I guess it must be an old scar.”
“What?” said Charles, pushing back his wet bangs and peering at himself in the mirror.
“Usually your hair hides it. That must be why I never noticed it before.”
Charles rubbed at the pale, round mark on his forehead, his brow creased in puzzlement. He took the washcloth from Alys and scrubbed harder. The surrounding skin turned an angry red, but the mark remained undisturbed.
Brother and sister stared at the reflection. An uneasy feeling was unwinding in Alys’s stomach. The mark was an odd color, almost luminous in the harsh fluorescent lighting. It reminded her of something… .
Charles was leaning over the sink, almost nose to nose with his reflection. His expression was exactly that of Alys’s mother when she found termite holes in the patio deck, as if a suspicion too horrible to contemplate were imposing itself on his mind. All at once he reared back.
“Where’s Janie?” Without waiting for an answer he strode down the hall and flung open Janie’s bedroom door.
“Don’t bother to knock,” said Janie, frowning from her desk. “How can I help you?”
Charles pointed a rigid finger at his forehead. “This!” he rapped out. “This—thing! Tell me it’s not what I think it is.”
Janie looked cagey. “And what do you think it is?”
“First you tell me if you know anything about it.”
Pushing back papers, Janie regarded her desk resignedly. “Maybe you’d better sit down,” she said to the paperweight.
Charles clapped a palm to his forehead and fell backward rigidly onto the bed. “I knew it! I knew it!”
“Charles, calm down. Janie, what is he talking about?”
Charles popped up again like a jack-in-the-box. “I don’t care how you do it. I want this thing off!”
Addressing Alys, Janie said, “In the old days I guess they would call it a fairy mark. A fairy, or an elf, or whatever, would kiss you, and it would leave an impression.”
“A fairy?” Utterly bewildered, Alys pictured Charles being bussed by a tiny pixie hovering on dragonfly wings.
“Fairy is a human word. In the Wildworld they call them Quislais.”
“Elwyn!”
“Yes, Elwyn!” howled Charles from the bed. “And it’s your fault for sending me to get her from the Wildworld last year. ‘She likes you,’ you said. ‘Lure her,’ you said. Well, I lured her, all right—for all the good it did us. And now look what’s happened!”
Alys rubbed her own forehead, which was beginning to ache. Trust Elwyn Silverhair to do something like this. She was Morgana’s half sister, a full Quislai, and as irresponsible as she was beautiful. A year and a half ago Alys had made the mistake of seeking her as an ally in their effort to save Morgana, and now it seemed they were still facing the consequences of that decision. Immortal and eternally childlike, Elwyn’s chief talent was for making trouble.
“I told you she was totally out to lunch as far as reality was concerned, but you still made me do it,” Charles raved on. “And I’m telling you right now, I am not going to go around with the kiss of Glinda the Good Witch on my forehead for the rest of my days. I want it off!”
“I didn’t make her kiss you,” Alys pointed out, helplessly. “You let her.”
“I want it off!” shouted Charles, sticking to ground he was sure of.
“Charles,” said Janie, “I can’t. “
There was a silence. Charles shut his eyes and then opened them very slowly.
“Who,” he said very quietly, “can?”
Janie looked at Alys, who winced. She turned back to Charles. “No one.”
“What?”
Alys sat and put an arm around his shoulders. He didn’t seem to notice. “Nobody can take it off. The High Council in Weerien couldn’t do it. I don’t think they would even try. They don’t mess with the Quislais on Quislai territory.”
Alys herself was bewildered. “If they’re all like Elwyn—”
“They’re not, but that’s not the point. Yes, they’re all impossible and unreliable and they may seem childish to us. But we should be glad they’re that way, because their power is beyond belief. Nothing can stand against them when they’re roused. When that happens even the greatest sorcerei keep out of their way. Fortunately it doesn’t happen very often.”
Charles was staring, dully, into a middle distance. “I’m going to kill her.”
“You can’t. But listen to me, Charles.” The mad-scientist look gleamed Janie’s purple eyes. “It’s not all bad. There are some advantages to being marked that way. Your senses will—probably already have—become sharper. Also, the creatures who recognize Quislai law will not dare harm you. That includes beasts of air and field and water, certain sprites and elementals, and other Quislais. You might actually find it rather interesting. …” Her voice trailed off at the look on his face. She sighed.
Charles rose and walked leadenly to the door.
“I will be,” he said, “in my room.” He added, in the tone of one who has nothing left to do but laugh at fate, “If anyone ever wants to enter the Emerald City, I’m your man.”
Alys bit her lip and shook her head as he left.
Then she turned to Janie. “Come on.”
“Where?”
“To Morgana’s. Claudia’s over there alone, and I don’t want her to be. Also, there’s something I want to pick up.”
Janie opened her mouth to argue, then shut it again. There were times when even she could see it would do no good.
*
On Fell Andred’s back path Janie stopped suddenly. She held out a downy white feather silently to Alys, eyebrows raised.
Alys frowned, lips pressed tightly together, and shook her head refusing to speculate.
The vixen was in the kitchen with Claudia, curled nose-to-tail on the broad-slabbed wooden table. She did not, Alys noted, look as if she had been in a fight the night before.
“I guess she didn’t catch up with Talisman after all,” Alys said.
One silken ear twitched. “As a matter of fact I did, if it’s any of your business,” the vixen said coolly, not opening her eyes. “If you want to know, I gave him a severe tongue-lashing.”
“I don’t think it did much good,” said Janie, amused. She twirled the white feather between her fingers in Claudia’s direction. “Outside, on the porch,” she said.
Claudia bolted up, shrieking. The vixen opened an eye. Alys grabbed the feather from Janie, at the same time shoving her toward the cellar door.
“You two go out and check on them,” she said breathlessly over her shoulder. “I’m going down to the workroom with Janie.” She added, with a hint of desperation, “Claudia, it’s in a fox’s nature to eat chickens.”
In the workroom she faced her sister’s inquisitive gaze squarely and spoke to the point.
“I want the sword,” she said.
Janie did not ask her what sword. She raised her eyebrows, pursed her lips, and said, “Huh.”
“There’s something nasty going on, and I can’t do anything to protect us. I told Mom I would take care of you guys. And to do that I need a weapon.”
Janie drummed her fingers on the worktable. “That’s not just any weapon,” she said at last.
“Magic?” Alys rubbed her arm reflexively.
“Made by Morgana herself, almost fifteen hundred years ago. Back in the days when they called her something different, though it means the same thing. All her names really just mean Morgan the fairy, I guess because her mother was Quislai.”
Janie was watching her intently, as if willing her to understand something.
“Sidhe
is just another word for fairy. ” Janie continued. She pronounced the word shee. “Morgana the fairy …” Alys went very still. “Morgan LeFay…”
“Right..”
“But—” Alys wasn’t sure what this history of the sorceress had to do with the sword. “You mean she was bad? And it’s bad, too?”
“Don’t be too sure the storybooks are right when they say Morgan LeFay was bad. Oh, I know, they say she was always fighting against Merlin and King Arthur. But there might be more than one side to that, and sometimes books are wrong.”
“All right. I believe you. And of course I trust Morgana. And that’s why”—she determinedly brought the conversation back to the point—“I want the sword. Oh, maybe I would want it anyway, even if there weren’t any danger. You’ve probably guessed I touched it. Morgana knew, I think. But, Janie, there is danger, and I think the sword can help.”
Janie shook her head slowly. “I’m not at all sure that Morgana would give it to you.”
“Morgana isn’t here. Look, Janie,” she added, as her sister continued to shake her head, “I’m trying to be reasonable about this. But I’ve made up my mind. If you won’t give it to me voluntarily I’ll have to use force!”
Janie grinned outright. “I invite you to try. I think you’ll find you can’t force that drawer open.”
“Maybe not, but I can force your teeth down past your tonsils.”
Janie blinked, looked slightly affronted, then chuckled. Although Alys frequently threatened violence, no one had ever known her to use it.
“All right, then,” she said finally. “But it’s your responsibility. And I don’t know what you’re going to do with it. It’s a broadsword, you probably won’t even be able to lift it.”
But the sword once again seemed to fit itself to Alys’s hand, and she lifted it easily. There was no shock. It was lighter than it looked, made of some Wildworld metal. Two-handedly, she raised it in salute, and then suddenly she found herself moving. Hanging guard, moulinet, riposte … these were words she would learn only later, but the movements were as easy and natural as breathing. She finished up in the same position she had started, in salute, then lowered the sword.
Janie was staring at her. “Where did you learn that?”
“I didn’t,” said Alys. “What is this, please? This writing on the blade?”
“Huh? Oh. That’s its name. Caliborn.” She was still looking at Alys doubtfully.
“Caliborn.” Alys balanced the sword in her hand and nodded. “All right, Janie. Thanks. Now let’s go see if Claudia is missing any chickens.”
Alys felt Janie’s eyes on her as they went back up, and knew that her sister had misgivings. But she herself did not feel anxious or alarmed. In fact, she felt relaxed for the first time in days.
SIX
Alys Has a Dream
Alys still felt physically relaxed that night, but it was difficult to get to sleep. She kept thinking about the vixen, pacing and raving in front of the henhouse, and Claudia wringing her hands over the two vanished chickens. They had returned from Morgana’s house under rapidly clouding skies.
She shifted position, leaning over the bed to check on the sword, which lay half-concealed under the dust ruffle. Succumbing to temptation, she reached for it, glad to feel its weight in her hand again. The blade threw lamplight in her eyes, dazzling.
So Morgana had made this. The hilt was very plain, just silver, but the sword as a whole was a spare, graceful work of art. She no longer felt any p
ain when she touched it, just a warmth that ran up her arm.
On impulse she got up and padded downstairs to the living-room bookcase, and searched until she found the title she was looking for. Tucking the book under her arm she went back to her bedroom.
The Legend of King Arthur.
She opened it and began to read. Some time later she shut the book with a thoughtful expression. So. According to legend, Arthur had been the son of King Uther Pendragon of the Island of Britain, and Ygraine, who was originally another king’s wife. There seemed to have been a lot of kings back then, all fighting each other. When Arthur was born, a red dragon appeared in the sky, and the rival kings vowed to kill the child who had been born under such a powerful portent. King Uther gave the child into the keeping of the wizard Merlin. Merlin himself had had a somewhat rocky beginning, it seemed, since when he was born it was rumored that he was not human but the son of a demon. But he had grown to be a wise and powerful wizard.
Arthur had been raised by a foster family in ignorance of his true identity. On the day Uther died a vast stone, foursquare (whatever that meant), had appeared in a churchyard, and on that stone was an anvil, and in the anvil was a sword. Written on the blade in Latin was, “Whoso pulleth this sword out of this stone and wedge of steel is rightwise born King of all Britain.”
Eleven kings, and plenty of other people, had had a go at the sword without luck. But when Arthur, a mere squire, put his hand on it, it came out easily. So everyone knew he was the rightful king, and that was that.
Alys tilted the blade on her knees to look at it again. No Latin, just the name. She felt at once disappointed and somehow relieved.
Gazing at the cover illustration of Merlin, a gray-bearded old man who looked wise and rather stern, Alys felt suddenly sleepy. She tucked the sword back under the dust ruffle and stretched out again, closing her eyes.
*
Under a night sky thick with stars, far away from any city lights, Morgana Shee woke and automatically made a rapid check of the wards that protected her.
Yes, this place was still safe. If she entered, or even came near, Morgana would have warning. Feeling a faint tingling in her arm, she glanced at the heavy copper bracelet she wore, but the crystal was still whole, unshattered. So the children were safe as well. What, then, had caused her to wake? What caused this feeling of unease?
Heart of Valor - V1 Dec 2004 Page 5