Chapter 5


Charming's blade, Excalibur, grunted with the weight of Frike's blow, bent like a willow, and then snapped back. Excalibur beat down hard on Frike's iron casque, forcing him backward. Frike took two steps to recover balance, then stomped forward again, his sword swinging in blind­ing patterns of advance and foil. Excalibur met the other's thrusts and parries with equal ardor and undaunted skill. The guests, who had gathered on the staircase and on the small interior balcony above to watch the fight, gasped and held their breaths.

Then Frike smiled, for he knew the fatal flaw in Excalibur. It was a demented demon-sword, and upon the signal, it re­sponded to a hellish master. Fitting that description fully, Frike waited until their swords were crossed once again. Then he cried, "Come to thy master, O mighty Excalibur! Come to me!"

"Not likely!" snarled Excalibur, slashing off Frike's right arm.

"I command you!" shouted Frike, his high berserk temper feeling no pain as he whirled a battle-ax around his head with his good, or rather remaining, hand, the left, or sinister one.

"But you didn't say it in Runic," Excalibur replied, lopping off Frike's other arm in response to Prince Charming's valiant swing.

"Spare me this fuscating of quiddities!" Frike shouted, now attacking with both feet, which were armed with scythes of a wicked temper. "By the arts of the ancient wicked ones, I bespeak thee, come now to me and at once and without further palaverations!"

"Why," Excalibur said, "if you so desire, then so be it!" And the great shining sword sprang from Charming's grasp, described a graceful arabesque in the air, and came to Frike point first, not stopping until it had pierced the man's armor and run him through his deepest extent.

"Alack, I am finished," Frike said.

Charming turned to the Princess. His eyes were ablaze. It was in his mind to end all ambiguity now.

"Give me one final kiss!" Charming said. "And then stab away to your heart's content, if this desire still be present, for no death is as dear as that bestowed by the beloved at the moment which should, if things had worked out otherwise, be that of highest bliss."

"I'll give thee kiss, and kiss for kiss, and then more kisses to repay those kisses betides!" Scarlet said. "Speak not of death. That was the old way. Now shall we go on forever in our pleasures!"

And so it was.


Загрузка...