by M. C. Planck
But then he saw a branch, three feet long and gently curved. Plucking it out of the woodpile, he handled it experimentally. A little trimming, and it would make a fine bokken, which was what he used in most of his training and practice anyway. Besides, hadn’t Musashi, the greatest duelist in all history, won half his duels with a wooden sword?
Scraping at the stick with the ax blade, he whittled away the hours until Helga called him in to lunch.
Again the food was plain: more porridge, with a yellowish bread that was spongy and slightly stale. But the ambiance was friendly, the old man keeping up a steady stream of wisecracks that had the girl giggling and blushing. Despite the language barrier, he included Christopher in the conversation, holding up both ends by himself and apparently doing a fine job of it.
After lunch, Svengusta prepared to go out, indicating with large hand motions that Christopher should stay inside. Christopher was happy enough to comply, since he was working on the laying-low theory and his impromptu weapon. The bokken was as polished as he could make it; now it needed practice.
In the empty, cold hall of the chapel, he found it easy to escape into the kata. Doing the traditional forms took his mind to familiar, comfortable places.
Pausing to catch his breath, he was interrupted by the double doors creaking open and two visitors slipping inside. The disarray of the room had led him to believe the chapel was not used, and he was as surprised to see them as they obviously were to see him.
They were both young, perhaps eighteen. The girl was pretty, the boy was handsome, and though their clothes were poor and plain medieval peasant costumes, the outfits gave the distinct impression of being their “Sunday best.”
He belatedly realized they weren’t dressed for church, but for each other.
They were polite and respectful, the girl curtsying and the boy bowing his head. Christopher decided he was the interloper here and was about to leave them to their privacy when a third person swaggered through the double doors.
He was not dressed like a peasant. He was richly cloaked in garish colors and fur trim, thirtyish, slightly overweight, and utterly full of himself. Christopher hated him instantly.
The man was as subtle as a foghorn. In one glance he dismissed both Christopher and the boy, and began to address the girl in unctuous tones.
Christopher knew he should walk away, knew he did not understand the subtleties of this affair or even the culture in which it occurred, but the raw emotion of the drama locked him in.
The boy objected; the girl hushed him, and though it was obvious that the girl loathed the richly garbed man, she seemed to be agreeing with him. Maybe he had some authority over her? But from the way he was looking at her, he couldn’t possibly be her father. There was too much naked desire for that.
She pleaded with the boy, passion quavering under her hushed tones. Christopher understood that part as plain as day: If you love me, leave now. Don’t make a scene. The boy’s face twisted in anger and pain, while the man smirked.
Suddenly the boy broke and ran, the double doors banging behind him, a swirl of cold snow whisking in his wake. The man laughed and took the girl by the arm. When she shuddered, Christopher snapped.
“No.” Though he spoke English, the intent could not fail to be understood.
The man looked at him, his face aflame, and snarled. Christopher shook his head in denial and pointed to the double doors.
The interloper huffed, but he started to go. He stepped toward the doors, pulling the girl with him. She resisted passively, unwilling to fight but unable to surrender.
“No,” Christopher said again.
Immediately the man spun and advanced on him in a fury, barking like a savage dog. The girl stood rooted, visibly terrified, and Christopher felt a cold queasiness growing in his belly.
The man was wearing a sword, a long, straight piece of metal that was both elegant and utterly practical. This was no hippie commune, no museum reenactment. The anger that poured out was not an act.
Christopher was trapped. Behind him was a rustic cottage and a serving girl. Behind that the quiet village, snowy miles from any kind of authority or civilization or reasonableness.
Or hospital.
Christopher did not want to provoke violence. He wanted to flee. But he had nowhere to go, so he stood, paralyzed by impossibility.
The man took his silence as opposition. His barking reached a crescendo, filling the stone chapel with sound and fury. Christopher tried not to be threatening, but the pressure of the man’s advance made him shift his stance and his hold on the bokken.
Sudden silence, as the man stopped talking and glared with mortal offense. Christopher was under no illusions. Twenty years of smacking people with bamboo sticks, of katas and cutting bundles of paper, did not make him a real swordsman. He had never killed anyone. He had never even tried to hurt someone. This man walked like a professional, the sword hanging from his hip as naturally as the cloak on his back. One mistake, and Christopher would not be allowed to restart the fight, recover from his error, learn from the experience. If the man went for his sword, Christopher would have to—
The man went for his sword.
He was impressively smooth, if not particularly fast. He had the blade almost out of the sheath before Christopher’s bokken cracked down on his skull. Christopher knew he had held back some; still, it was a solid blow, and the man should have gone down, cried out, or at least been stunned. Instead, he snarled and stabbed at Christopher with his sword.
Christopher’s training saved him and he instinctively parried. After all, hitting people in the head in bamboo-armed sparring matches had never stopped them from attacking him before, why should he expect it to now? His body carried on, even while his mind grappled with the stunning ineffectiveness of his first strike.
He snapped his bokken up into the man’s face, smashing the nose. A blow that should have blinded, staggered, distracted, at least gushed blood, only elicited a growl. The man lunged, stabbed again as Christopher stepped back but not far enough. The thick steel blade caressed his left side, opening a six-inch-long gash that spat a fan of red into the air.
But Christopher’s bokken was already in motion, wheeling around his head in a great arc, smashing down on the right side of the man’s jaw. He did not hold back this time—there was nothing left to hold him, as he passed completely into the moment of the fight, surrendering to the reflex of training. He distinctly heard bone snap and the pitter-patter of drops of blood on the hardwood floor.
The man fell like a stone, Christopher crumpling after him. The double doors creaked, the chapel empty now save for the two bodies.
He came back to real time, and ordinary mind. He held his bleeding flesh together and tried not to panic. The brutal pain helped; the mere thought of moving was petrifying. He tried to cry out, but he could not draw the breath for it. A stomach wound, the worst kind. If he survived the hemorrhage, infection would almost certainly get him. Hopefully the girl had gone for help, although he wasn’t sure what kind of help these people could offer. He needed doctors and emergency surgery, not hippies and herbal tea. He needed an American Embassy. He needed his wife.
He did not want to die among strangers.
Time passed, immeasurably. His mind could not focus on anything but the steady pump of blood. One fact finally penetrated: his opponent was still breathing. He was not dead. Christopher idly wondered if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
The doors burst open, and Svengusta and Helga rushed into the room. The old man knelt to Christopher, examined the wound with professional authority. He reached out to trace the bloody gash with one gentle finger while chanting.
The line of fire went out, the pain suddenly just a memory. Christopher looked down in wonder at his whole flesh. Only the drying blood said it had ever been otherwise.
Svengusta was already kneeling over the other man. He examined him briefly, then stood and began removing his own wool cloak.
“Løp ,” he said
to Christopher. “Knockford. Løp!”
Christopher did not need to speak the language to understand. Knockford was obviously somewhere, anywhere other than here. And “Run!” was utterly self-evident.
But the same lack of direction that had paralyzed him all morning nullified him. He stood up but did not know which way to turn. Helga was struggling into her own cloak as Svengusta struggled out of his, and when it was free, the old man threw it into Christopher’s arms.
The impetus released him. He hurried after Helga, out of the doors into the village, down the road, carrying the cloak uselessly in his hands. After two hundred yards he fell to his knees, gasping for air.
Helga tugged at him, also spent, but fear drove her like a whip. He climbed to his feet and into the cloak. Even though it was too small, hanging barely below his waist, the warmth it gave was the difference between life and death. Helga hugged her own threadbare cloak tight around her shoulders, and they hustled on. She kept looking over her shoulder in terror until he made her quit. They did not have the energy to waste. Already he was dizzy and nauseous.
He began to notice the cold as the adrenaline in his system faded. Though his body burned with latent energy, a deep psychic weariness threatened to overwhelm him every time the wind reached under his cloak and through the rent in his T-shirt to prod him with icy fingers. He had been seriously wounded, more injured than he had ever been before in his life. It had not been a scratch that could be dismissed with conjuring tricks or ignored by the power of suggestion. But the wound was completely gone, his belly not even sore.
Eventually it occurred to him that his opponent might also be healed. In a panic he looked around for a place to hide, but the snow was unbroken on the roadside and would give away their trail. Nor could he last through the night without shelter. And in his confusion he had left his wooden stick behind.
His only option was to follow Helga, who determinedly marched along a wagon-rut cut through the snow. As the sun slipped to the horizon he began to hope that the cover of darkness would protect them. But nightfall brought its own fears—and the return of memory.
At first it was only the glitter of the country sky unobscured by city lights. But as the sun faded, the stars kept coming, until the wrongness of the night sky blazed out at him, a black velvet canopy crowded with diamonds. He could not find Orion’s trusty belt; he could not even imagine constellations in that sparkling ocean.
His pretenses collapsed under the weight of twinkling stars. No one could kidnap the constellations; no plane could fly him to any part of the globe that would look like this. He remembered the confusion now, one moment desert heat and the next winter’s cold. He had called for his dogs, but the jingle of their collars was gone. He had looked back for the way he had come, only to find his tracks began abruptly in the snow as if he had stepped through an invisible doorway. A doorway that was already closed when he’d rushed back, leaving him freezing and alone in a silent forest. With nothing for company but the trees and the impossible, innumerable stars.
He stopped, gaping at the sky, reading the pitiless message spelled out in brilliant points in the night: lost , beyond all hope and understanding, beyond all ordinary meaning of the word. Everything he had built, everything he had struggled for and fought for and won, was gone, stolen away in an instant.
And with it went the only treasure that really mattered: Maggie. He would never see her again. Robbed of purpose, he stood rooted by despair.
Helga pulled him into motion, leading him forward like a dumb beast.
2.
INTERVIEW WITH A PRIEST
They came to a town sprawled in the middle of a gentle valley, a small river running in front of it. Most of the buildings faded into the darkness; a large church dominated from the center of the town, with many-colored shining windows.
As they crossed over the simple stone bridge, he began to outpace the girl. He could no longer feel his feet; his tennis shoes were inadequate for the weather. The modernity of the light called to him, with its promise of shelter. Absurdly he began to hope they would have a telephone. Three large stone steps led to double doors, twice as large and impressive as those of the tiny chapel he had fled. They had no handles, so he grasped a huge bronze ring in the shape of a wreath of wheat and let it clang against the doorplate.
A blast of warm air: to his left, Helga had opened a small doorway framed in one of the large doors. He had to hunch over to follow her through the short, narrow space. Inside, he found a huge hall with light blazing from chandeliers and half a dozen crackling fireplaces.
A handful of tables were scattered about the room, mostly empty. At the closest a young man in a cassock frowned at them over a stack of black slates in wooden frames. The man standing next to the clerk was dressed as a soldier, in a chain-mail tunic with a long, straight sword at his hip. He stared at Christopher intently. Christopher stared back, heartbroken by the absence of a radio or a handgun, and shamed that he had let himself expect them.
Helga had shut the door, and now she hustled over to the two men, shaking and babbling. The clerk rose to his feet, concern on his face and in his reassuring touch. Helga calmed a bit and gasped out the rest of her story. Christopher could tell when she got to the part about the fight from the curious affect that flitted across the soldier’s face. But then it was gone, replaced by the mien of the professional military man.
The agitated clerk sat Helga down in his chair and said something to the soldier, who dismissed him with a brief nod. Then the clerk ran off, disappearing through one of the many doors emptying into the hall. Helga sat and sniffled; Christopher stood, swaying from exhaustion. He wanted to move closer to a fireplace, but the pressure of the soldier’s gaze pinioned him in place.
Soon the clerk returned, accompanied by a small crowd. A short, stout, middle-aged woman seemed in charge: she glared at Christopher and spoke to him. When he shook his head mutely, she muttered something in a different language, elegant and tonal, and waved her hand. While Christopher tried to decide if he should wave back, she studied him, and then reached a decision. The crowd surged around her, listening to her verdict, and then the soldier came forward to claim him.
Helga came also, and because of her, Christopher followed the soldier deeper into the church, through wood-paneled hallways lit by gas lamps, to a small, windowless office. Inside, a pair of armchairs faced a comfortable fire. One of the chairs contained a priest in crisp white robes trimmed in gold. At first Christopher thought he was young, because of his clean-shaven face. Every other man Christopher had seen here wore a beard; even the young soldier had a permanent rascally five-day growth. But the priest sat like an old man under a heavy burden.
Still, when he turned to Helga, he greeted her with a smile. The girl trembled in obvious celebrity-worship while she related her story, guided by a few gentle prompts. At the end of her tale, she squeezed Christopher’s hand reassuringly and then abandoned him. By reflex he turned to follow her out, but the soldier was leaning against the wall, his arms folded in denial.
Christopher turned around again, and the priest waved for him to sit. The chair was padded in old leather, worn thin. Christopher leaned forward to soak in the heat, the crackling logs familiar and safe.
A pot of tea sat on a side-table. The priest poured two mugs and offered him one. Gratefully Christopher took it, wrapping his hands around the smooth stone cup.
“Thank you,” he said.
The priest said something, probably polite. Christopher shook his head.
“I’m sorry,” Christopher said, “I don’t speak your language.”
The priest eyed him critically, bowed his head, and began a prayer. Again he spoke in a different language, beautiful and exotic, the same one the woman downstairs had used.
Christopher could not remember the last time a prayer had any effect on him. This one did. The air felt heavy and close, and the pressure of an unseen gaze lay on him, the sensation so vivid that he looked around the ro
om. It was empty, save for the three men.
After his prayers the priest looked up at Christopher and said, in perfect English, “I am Krellyan, Saint of the Bright Lady, and I enjoin you to answer my questions truthfully and fully. Are you a spy?”
Having just accepted he would never see home again, the sound of his own language was disorienting. It gave rise to hope, and with hope came fear. The mixture was indistinguishable from anger.
“No, I’m not a spy. I can’t speak the language. Why would you think I’m a spy if I can’t even speak the damn language?”
“It is not helpful to speculate on my motives,” Krellyan replied calmly. “Please, just answer the questions. Is your intent here hostile?”
“No,” Christopher said, misery washing the hard edge out of his voice. “I don’t even know where here is. My only intent is to not be here. I want to go home. Call the damn Embassy, already.” A tremor shook his body.
“What Embassy?”
“The American Embassy. I’m an American.” Christopher felt an odd compulsion to provide a complete explanation. “From Arizona.” The priest showed no recognition, but Christopher controlled his exasperation. Arizona was a fairly obscure place, after all. “It’s right next to California.” Everybody in the world knew where California was.
“Where is California?” Krellyan asked with the perfect imitation of innocence.
The exasperation won, and his temper snapped. “Stop fooling around!”
From behind came a jingle of metal; Krellyan raised a forestalling hand and spoke in their foreign tongue. Christopher was reminded that an armed man watched him. The fire no longer seemed quite so cheery.
Krellyan turned back to Christopher with a subtle frown. “Calm yourself. I am not fooling around, as you say. I do not know of any county, realm, or land by those names.”
Christopher pounced with killing logic. “Then how in the hell can you speak English?”
“Is that what you call this tongue?” Krellyan answered. “I do not recognize that name, either.” When Christopher stared at him, Krellyan continued. “Surely you understand this is merely a spell, and that I do not actually know your language.”