Oath of Swords-ARC

by David Weber

  Houghton had already completed all of his other pre-mission checks. Fuel, battery, ammo, night-vision, thermal sights, commo, personal weapons . . . . He still had a good twenty minutes before they were scheduled to leave, but he and his crew were firm believers in staying well ahead of deadlines.

  Never hurts to be ready sooner than you have to, he reflected, the back of his mind still visualizing the silent, steady sweep of snowflakes. It sure as hell beats the alternative, anyway! And the LT won't like it if something screws up while —

  That was when it happened.

  The universe went abruptly, shockingly gray. Not black, not foggy, not hazy—gray. His brain insisted that the featureless grayness which had enveloped him was almost painfully bright, but his pupils and optic nerve were equally insistent that the light level hadn't changed at all. His hands death-locked on the rim of the commander's hatch as the fourteen-ton LAV seemed to fall out from under him, yet even as that sickening sense of freefall swept over him, he knew he hadn't actually moved at all.

  After sixteen years in the Corps, Ken Houghton figured he''d seen and experienced just about anything that was likely to come a Marine's way. This was something else entirely, though—something human senses had never been intended to grasp or describe—and a burst of something far too much like panic blazed through him.

  It seemed to go on for hours, but there also seemed to be something wrong with his time sense. He couldn''t seem to speak, didn't even seem to be breathing, yet he managed to look down at his wristwatch, and the digital display was crawling, crawling. He could have counted to ten—slowly—in the time it took each crawling second to limp into eternity. Two agonizingly slow minutes dragged by. Then three. Five. Ten. And then, as suddenly as the universe's colors had disappeared, they were back.

  But they were the wrong colors.

  The tans and grays and sun-blasted browns of the Middle East were gone. And so was the night. The LAV sat on a gently sloping hillside covered in prairie grasses three or four feet tall under a sun that was still at least two or three hours short of setting.

  Houghton heard Mashita's deep, explosive grunt of astonishment over the helmet commo link, but the gunnery sergeant hadn't needed that to tell him they weren't in Kansas anymore.

  Houghton stared in stupefied disbelief at the high, crystalline blue sky, felt the autumnal chill in the slight breeze cooling the sweat on his desert-bronzed face, heard the birds that shouldn't have been there, and wondered what the hell had happened. He turned his head slowly, and that was when he saw the tall, white-haired man with the peculiar eyes standing almost directly behind the LAV.

  Wencit of Rûm looked up in astonishment as the bizarre, sand-colored vehicle—and it obviously was a vehicle, even if he'd never seen anything like it—blinked into existence. It certainly wasn't what he'd expected.

  Of course, judging from the expression of the redhaired man standing up in the opening on top of it, Wencit wasn't the only one who'd been surprised.

  The man in question turned his head far enough to see Wencit, and his green eyes narrowed suddenly. His right hand flashed around to his left side, out of sight for a moment from where Wencit stood, then reappeared holding something else Wencit had never seen before. From the way the newcomer had turned to point it in his direction, though, it had to be a weapon of some sort, and probably a most unpleasant one.

  Wencit decided it would be a very good idea to keep his own hand well away from the hilt of his sword as he gazed up at the redhead.

  "Who the hell are you?" the man in the vehicle demanded hoarsely. His lips didn't move in exact time with the voice Wencit heard (and understood), and the wizard noted that at least the language aspects of the spell had worked properly.

  "My name is Wencit of Rûm," he said, speaking slowly and clearly, and it was obvious from the other's expression that he understood Wencit as well as Wencit understood him.

  The redhead bent his head briefly, muttering something Wencit couldn't quite hear, then climbed slowly and carefully out of the hatch in which he'd stood. He never took his eyes off Wencit any more than he allowed his weapon's point of aim to shift, and Wencit took the opportunity to study him more closely, in turn.

  The bulky helmet was made of some material Wencit had never seen before but which must be quite light, judging from the way he moved. And the newcomer wore what was obviously a uniform. It was well-equipped with sensibly arranged pockets, although its outlandish pattern of tan, gray, and sand-colored blotches seemed incredibly out of place in his current setting.

  And his vehicle doesn't look out of place, Wencit? the wizard asked himself dryly.

  "Where are we?" the redhaired man asked, and Wencit was impressed. The stranger's voice was taut, obviously more than a little confused, but he was tightly focused, ignoring all the things which must have been frightening, if not outright terrifying, while he concentrated on the essentials.

  "You're in the Empire of the Spear," Wencit told him. "Between Darkwater Marsh and the Shipwood, west of the Spear River."

  * * *

  Gunnery Sergeant Houghton's eyes narrowed as the lunatic facing him responded with perfectly rational sounding gibberish. The lunatic in question couldn't be as old as the white beard and hair suggested—not with the hard-trained muscle visible in his arms and those strong, sinewy wrists. In fact, he looked like a case of bad casting for a low-budget fantasy movie. Obviously, they'd picked someone too young for the part and tried to use makeup to make him look older, but somehow Houghton felt certain the answer wasn't quite that simple. The scuffed leather doublet, tall horseman's boots, and scruffy look which could only come with days spent in the field were too authentic for that. For that matter, the sword at his side looked well-worn and serviceable.

  Now the old fellow stood there, head cocked slightly to one side, waiting patiently, as if what he'd just said actually made some sort of sense. And as Houghton's brain began working again, he realized just how peculiar the other man actually looked. It wasn't just the dichotomy between his apparent age and physical fitness, nor his height, although Houghton wasn't accustomed to seeing all that many men who matched his own six-feet-four. The really weird thing about him was his eyes.

  Kenneth Houghton had never imagined anything like the flickering, wavering, multi-colored wildfire which danced slowly and endlessly under the stranger's snow-white eyebrows. It didn't dance in front of his eyes; it filled the sockets themselves, sending little prominences of witchfire curling up higher than his lids , but how in God's name could anyone have eyes that looked like that? And how could anyone who did possibly see through them?

  The questions flickered through his mind, but the muzzle of his Springfield XD .45 stayed rock-steady on the other man's chest. The polymer framed pistol wasn't standard issue, but when a man had knocked around the Corps as long as Houghton had, he could get by with a few personal preferences. He liked the automatic's ergonomics and controls . . . and its stopping power and fourteen-round magazine capacity. Both of which, at the moment, he found ever so comforting.

  "How did we get here?" he asked harshly, challengingly. Somehow he was certain the man facing him was responsible for the impossible transition.

  "I'm afraid that's my fault," the flame-eyed stranger admitted. "I was looking for help, but —" Houghton had the impression that the eyes he couldn't quite see behind that wavering glare had narrowed "— I certainly didn't expect to get you."

  "What d' you mean by that?" Houghton demanded.

  "That's going to be just a little difficult to explain," Wencit said, then shrugged. "If you want to stand here and keep pointing your weapon—I assume it is a weapon?—at me while we talk, I suppose we can. Or we can sit down by my fire over there and enjoy a mug of tea during the conversation, instead."

  He twitched his head sideways, at the neat campfire burning in the carefully built turf fireplace and the warhorse tearing steadily at the tall grass to one side of the area he'd tramped down for his camp. The
stranger's eyes followed the movement for an instant, then flicked back to Wencit.

  "I think we will stand here, at least for now," he said. "And, yes. It's a weapon."

  "I rather thought it must be." Wencit smiled crookedly. "I don't suppose I should have expected any other reaction out of you, especially under these circumstances." He waved one hand in a slight arc, indicating both the bizarre vehicle and the grasslands stretching away in all directions.

  "No, you shouldn't. And," the other man's voice hardened slightly, "I'm still waiting for that explanation."

  "So I see. Very well, the short version is that a friend of mine is about to run into a situation which is even more dangerous than he realizes. There's more going on than I suspect he knows, and his enemies are rather more powerful than he's been given cause to expect. I happen to have been following some of those enemies for reasons of my own, which is how I know what's happening. So, I cast a spell of summoning, seeking allies. Obviously it fastened on you, for some reason, although you and this peculiar . . . wagon of yours," he indicated the vehicle once more, "are nothing at all like what I expected to answer me."

  Houghton understood the words just fine, despite the fact that they were obvious and arrant nonsense.

  Stop that! he told himself. It may sound crazy, all right, but do you have any better explanation, Ken?

  "What's a 'spell of summoning'?" he heard himself asking.

  "It's a spell which is supposed to be very carefully keyed to a specific entity or type of entity," Wencit replied. "The caster—me, in this case—sets up the qualities and . . . personality, for want of a better word, for the entity he hopes to summon. The spell is designed to find someone—or, sometimes, something—which matches what the wizard has specified."

  "And—assuming for a moment that I believed any of this—it just yanks whoever you point it at to where you want him, is that it?" The sharp edge of anger, honed, undoubtedly, by perfectly understandable fear and confusion, was unmistakable, and Wencit shook his head.

  "As a matter of fact, no," he said calmly. "I adhere to the Strictures of Ottovar, and the Strictures are very clear on that point. No wizard may coerce any other being or entity into obeying his demands except in certain very carefully specified instances of self-defense, or in equally specific instances of the defense of others. I have absolutely no idea why my spell might have brought you here so abruptly. In fact, it shouldn't have brought you here at all, unless you were willing to come."

  "Well in that case," the redhead said grimly, "I suggest you just send Jack and me back where we came from, since it's for damned sure that neither one of us volunteered for this little excursion of yours."

  "There's someone else in the vehicle?" Wencit's dismay wasn't at all feigned.

  "Of course there is! You don't think I run the whole damned track by myself, do you?"

  "I don't know," Wencit said frankly. "I don't know anything more about you and your vehicle or your companion than it would appear you know about sorcery. But the fact that someone else came with you is only one more indication that something must have gone badly awry with my spellcasting. I was seeking only a single individual."

  "You were, huh? If this friend of yours is in such deep shit, why'd you only ask for one person to help out? What? You were expecting Clark Kent?"

  "I have no idea who 'Clark Kent' might be," Wencit replied, wrapping his tongue around the odd-sounding name with care. "What I was hoping I might manage to convince to come help me was a gryphon."

  "A gryphon?" Against his will, Houghton was beginning to believe the fiery-eyed old man was telling him the truth about how he, Mashita, and Tough Mama had gotten here. Wherever the hell "here" might be!

  "You mean one of those lion-mixed-with-an-eagle critters?" He snorted a laugh. "Hell, why settle for something like that? Why not go whole hog and 'summon' a frigging dragon?"

  "It takes too long to explain things to dragons," the oldster replied reasonably. "Or, rather, to convince them they ought to get involved. By the time they get done searching the time stream and philosophizing, it's usually too late to accomplish much. Then there's the little problem that most of them aren't very happy about having anything to do with even a white wizard these days. But mostly, frankly, because I needed something as powerful as I could get."

  Houghton stared at him for a moment longer, then sighed. It was all totally insane, of course. Unfortunately, it actually seemed to be happening to him.

  He engaged the pistol's safety and slid it back into the shoulder holster under his left arm. Then he removed his helmet and tucked his left elbow around it while the cool breeze swept over hair still wet with Middle Eastern sweat.

  "You realize, of course," he said conversationally, "that I think you're probably nutty as a fruitcake. On the other hand, I don't have any better explanation for what the hell is going on here. In fact, at the moment, you seem to be the only game in town when it comes to answers. And presumably, if you got us here, you can send us home again, too."

  "Of course I can," Wencit agreed, and saw the other man relax, at least a little. "Unfortunately, I can't simply turn around and do it with a snap of my fingers," he continued, and grimaced mentally as the momentary relaxation disappeared.

  "And why might that be?" the other man growled suspiciously.

  "It's a complex spell," Wencit said apologetically. "It takes time to prepare for it, and that's especially true in this case. Since you aren't remotely what or who I anticipated, I'll have to be very careful in specifying where you're supposed to go. It's my fault you're here, and if I send you home, that's where I want you to go. I certainly don't want to end up just dropping you into still another world that isn't yours."

  "I see." Houghton knew his tone sounded grudging. Which, now that he thought about it, was just too bad. The old guy was right—it was his fault Houghton and Mashita had ended up wherever the hell they were. Still, he reminded himself, the other man—the wizard, he supposed—seemed to be willing to acknowledge his responsibility and do his best to make things right again.

  "My name's Houghton," he heard himself saying. "Gunnery Sergeant Kenneth Houghton, US Marines."

  "Houghton?" the other man repeated, as if the name felt peculiar in his mouth. Then he shook himself. "Men call me Wencit of Rûm," he said.

  "Well then, Wencit," Houghton said, "how soon can we get started on this 'complex spell' of yours?"

  "Not for at least several hours," Wencit replied. "As I said, I'd expected to summon my ally from this universe; it never occurred to me that I might end up reaching over into another one. Unfortunately, it did. Since I hadn't expected that, I didn't include a command to identify the one you came from, and the spell's set up a ripple pattern in the magic field. I'm going to have to give it time to settle a bit before I can start looking for the traces that will guide me to your universe."

  "My universe?" Houghton shook his head. "You're telling me I'm in an entirely different universe?"

  "Obviously," Wencit replied. Another wave of his hand indicated Houghton's uniform and equipment harness and Tough Mama, sitting on the grass behind him and Mashita—who'd climbed up onto the decking through his hatch –ñ looming up on the far side of the turret. Then the same hand indicated Wencit's own clothing, the campfire, and the magnificent horse grazing nearby. "I may not recognize your vehicle, Kenneth Houghton," he said, "but wouldn't you say it seems just a bit out of place here?"

  "I guess you could put it that way," Houghton admitted, and glanced over his shoulder at Mashita.

  The private had obviously been listening to the early stages of at least Houghton's side of the conversation over his helmet commo link. Now the short, wiry Nisei shrugged and settled himself casually on top of the turret beside the M240 machine gun at the commander's station. It put him close enough to listen to Houghton's conversation with their . . . host, and despite this Wencit's apparent sincerity, it didn't bother Houghton a bit to have the machine gun manned, just in case.
>
  "So, we're in another universe," he said, turning back to Wencit. "What is it? One of those 'parallel universes' the science-fiction writers are so fond of?"

  "I'm not familiar with 'science-fiction writers,' Kenneth Houghton," Wencit replied. "But to call our universes 'parallel,' might actually be a good way to describe it. Or, at least, as good a way as I've ever heard anyone else suggest."

  "It's Ken, not Kenneth," Houghton said. His voice was harsher than he'd intended as a familiar stab of remembered loss went through him. He'd always disliked his first name. In fact, Gwynn was the only one who had ever been able to call him "Kenneth" without making him feel like some sort of dweeb.

  "Ken?" Wencit repeated, then made a sound suspiciously like a chuckle.