Circle at center

3
A Knight of the Temple

The witch lived at the top of the steepest crag in the Lodespikes, but Sir Christopher would go willingly, gladly, up the precipitous trail. Dismounting at the foot of a steep slope of boulders, he leaned his shield-upon which could still be seen the red cross of a Knight Templar-against a nearby stone. The symbol would ward against evil and the horse wait patiently, Christopher knew, while the man went about the work of God.

He started upward with his sword sheathed at his side, using a stout staff as support on the jagged, rocky mountainside. The rod was smooth and dark, higher than himself by a foot, and showed the gleam of meticulous oiling and no little polish.

In his other hand the knight carried a leather sack, holding the bag away from direct contact with his body. The serpent confined in the leathery prison twisted and writhed, hissing angrily, occasionally poking outward with a lethal fang. Sir Christopher was well satisfied with the vitality of the asp he had captured.

Surely the witch would do the rest.

Finally he came upon a trail that led him out of the boulders, then twisted up to a knifecrest of lofty ridge. A single step to either side would have sent him tumbling to his doom, but he marched forward resolutely.

Now his goal was in sight, a tiny hut of stone and thatch standing at the crest of the domed summit. It was simple and rude, but from what Sir Christopher knew of witches, the interior would be well-furnished and spacious.

She was waiting in the doorway, watching as he strode onto the broad cap of the mountaintop. Though he was winded, the knight betrayed no sign of fatigue as he walked up to the witch and stopped.

His first thought was that she looked old for an elf. Her gray hair was incongruous on one of these folk who so rarely showed any sign of age. In his experience, even elven witches were vain enough to slick their hair with gold as they grew older.

“You are human, but no druid,” she said.

“I am a knight in service to Our Lord Jesus Christ,” he declared. “And I come seeking a boon from a witch.”

“I am the sage-enchantress Allevia… I am not a…”

The woman’s voice trailed off as she stared, wide-eyed, at the white pearl that Sir Christopher drew into his hand. He extended his clenched fist, allowing the stone to swing on its chain of gold. A crimson shape, a mark in the shape of an X, blazed from the face of the stone.

“You bear the Stone of Command,” she said, awestruck. “The talisman of Caranor, my sister-how came you to hold it?”

“She bestowed it upon me,” Christopher replied. “And now you must perform the task I request, correct?”

“I will perform your task,” the witch said without hesitation.

Sir Christopher seized the bottom of the sack, inverting it to dump the thrashing viper onto the ground. Instantly it coiled, then struck at the narrow shin of the elfwoman’s leg. The witch snapped a single word, a sound unlike anything Christopher could have duplicated, and the snake halted in mid-strike. Jaws wide, fangs extended, it was frozen like an image carved in wood.

The knight tossed his staff to the ground beside the immobile reptile. “I want the snake to become the staff-and the staff, the snake. I desire a rod of righteousness, and you will give it to me.”

“Of righteousness?” the witch said in wonder. “I do not know that word.”

“It is not necessary that you do,” Sir Christopher replied. “Righteousness is the Immutable Law of God, and that law is carried in my heart and my immortal soul.”

The witch turned to her preparations as Sir Christopher followed her into the hut. As he had suspected, it was very large inside, at least as spacious as the knightly manor he had owned in England-before the calling of the Templars had carried him to Jerusalem so long, long ago.

He watched intently as the elfwoman prepared for her spell. She spoke a word of incantation and a blaze crackled into life, radiating fiercely from the hearth. Though Sir Christopher looked closely, he could see no sign of fuel within the fireplace. The witch then lifted a bucket of water above a sturdy table, pouring the liquid onto the tabletop as she croaked more guttural, arcane words. The knight was careful to conceal his astonishment as he watched the water turn to ice.

With deft movements the woman called Allevia used her hands to curl the ice, which was somehow pliable, into a long trough. She set the staff in that trough, then took up the snake. This time her spell-casting was like a reptile’s hiss, and abruptly the serpent stretched, still rigid and now straight as the shaft. She placed the creature into the trough of ice, beside the rod of wood.

Finally she took up the long container, which had not yet begun to melt. She called a harsh sound and Christopher skipped backward with undignified haste as the fire advanced out of the fireplace to snap merrily in the middle of an ornate rug. He was not surprised to see that the carpet suffered not at all from the flames-even though he could feel the heat clearly warming the skin of his face.

The witch fed the trough of ice slowly into the fire, and the ice hissed into steam, obscuring the heart of the yellow brightness.

Christopher went to the far side of the blaze to take the object that came out of the flames. The wood was cool to his touch, and he could clearly feel the ripples of thin scales on the surface. It had an admirable heft, with a head that was wooden, but carved into the perfect visage of a striking snake, jaws gaping.

“You have your staff,” Allevia said, staring at him with a directness that made him uneasy. “Now, are you righteous?”

“Aye,” he replied without hesitation. “Aye, witch, I am righteous.

He smashed her in the left shoulder with the blunt end of his staff, hard enough to break the bone-though he was careful not to kill her. She flew against the wall and slumped to the floor, gasping, her good hand pressed to the awkwardly twisted shoulder.

Sir Christopher crossed to her and stepped down, hard, on her slender shin. Once again he heard a sharp snap, and-as always-he was startled by the brittleness of elder elven bone.

But, strangely, this elfwoman wasn’t crying. Usually the folk of this corrupt and hedonistic race, so unused to pain or violence, would break down pathetically under the severity of their punishment. Angrily he tapped her broken shoulder, hard, with the end of the staff.

“Why do you attack me?” she asked, and those clear eyes pinned him with a fire that seared toward his soul.

“You are an abomination-a tool of Satan, cursed to eternal Hell.” He spoke the words mostly for himself, knowing that she wouldn’t understand. They never did, these witches that he punished.

“The stone!” she insisted, her voice surprisingly strong. “Give it to me!”

He laughed. “You are wise in the ways of witches, but overall a fool. The Stone of Command is mine, now.”

“No!” For the first time he saw real fear in her green eyes. “You cannot-”

His next blow smashed her jaw so hard that, for a moment, he was afraid he had killed her. But no-once more those emerald eyes were watching him, albeit with a look that grew ever more dull and clouded. Still, she followed his movements as he pulled wooden shelves onto the floor, smashed furniture to kindling, and tore many of her books into shredded tinder. He was fortunate enough to find several jars of oil, and these he poured over the gathered wood, forming a ring around the witch.

A single spark from his tinderbox started the blaze, and he quickly retreated from the hut, backing away even farther as flames swiftly engulfed the structure. Soon the fire was high, and so hot that even the encircling cornice was hissing, lending a cloud of white vapor that swirled about the pyre of smoke.

“Good… snow boiling into steam. It is perfect.”

Sir Christopher smiled as he started down the mountain, certain that God would enjoy the irony.

N atac was aware only of a consuming laziness. Even though he knew vaguely that it was light outside, he slept for long hours, luxuriously buried in the plush furs, sated by lingering memories of a night of impossible passion. There were screens across several windows, muting the bright daylight, and he allowed himself to languish in comfort, drowsy enough to avoid the questions that otherwise would have gnawed him to agitation.

Eventually it was the need to empty his bladder that compelled him to move. When he sat up in the bed he also became aware of fierce thirst, and hunger growled insistently in his belly. He stood at the side of the sleeping pallet, for the first time wondering where the woman had gone. He remembered her beauty, wondered for a fearful moment if it had all been a dream. But he touched his chest, found no wound there. His flesh was healed. And the pallet was the same… he saw the lamps in the niches on the wall. All the details of this place were the same.

Except for his companion.

He noticed a circle of golden dust upon the floor and realized that he had first appeared in the center of that ring. The dust had been scuffed away in one place, where he had walked toward the pallet. Next he recognized the exit from the room, which was a panel of wood not unlike a door that might be found in a splendid house of Tlaxcala. The hinges and latch were of a hard, cold material that was not familiar to him. Still, he had no difficulty lifting the latch and pushing open the door.

He found a short corridor extending away from his room, with a sunlit courtyard visible through an open archway at the opposite end. The faint smell of sweet pollen tickled his nostrils and he advanced with a quick, anticipatory step. He passed open, airy rooms to either side, but his eyes were fixed on the bright outdoors. From somewhere a tantalizing waft of grilling meat reached him, and his stomach rumbled at the prospect of hearty food.

Only then did he remember his nakedness. Quickly he returned to the room, where he found a white robe with sleeves and hem of perfect length for his sturdy, powerful body. The cloth was smooth and supple, almost liquid in its shimmering texture, gentle as the softest fawn’s hide against his skin.

Returning to the hallway, he hastened to the courtyard beyond, and found himself standing before a wide, bowl-shaped pool of water. Plants, including familiar ferns, palms, and blossoms, as well as other, more exotic foliage, grew from numerous clay pots. The sky overhead was a rich blue, but as he walked through the garden and the view expanded his steps slowed. Finally he stopped, gawking at a vista that was like nothing in the world-at least, nothing in the world Natac had known all his life.

He stood on the paved veranda of a large, white-walled villa. The garden was forgotten as he looked across a sunlit expanse of blue water. Steep bluffs, such as the slope right before him, plunged to the shore of the lake, or perhaps it was a sea. From here the body of water looked fully as big as the entire valley of Mexico. In the center of the sparkling expanse was a large, hilly island, a place dotted with many tall buildings of white, gray, red, and black stone. From the center of that island a silver spire rose skyward, a structure as tall as a high mountain and, when viewed from here at least, as thin as a pole.

“The priests were wrong,” he said aloud, remembering the tales of black Mictlan, with its sunless skies and midnight horizons. “The land of death is a wondrous place!”

He was stunned, elated, and confused. By rights, he should already be embarked upon an arduous and challenging journey, with only the comfort of his loyal friends, those who had died with him. But instead, he had found this paradise, with a beautiful woman to meet him, a splendid view of a sunlit horizon, and-judging by the aroma that wafted outside to him-at least one meal that promised to be very tasty.

And it was a place where his body seemed to work much as it had during life. His broken hand was whole, and free of pain, healed as thoroughly as his chest. After he urinated off the edge of the veranda, he turned back to the house, determined to find the source of that wonderful aroma.

He was startled to see, amid the trees and flowering bushes in the garden, the figure of a youth or a small man-he couldn’t be certain which. The fellow was slender, and his head was surrounded by a veil of hair the color of ripe straw.

“Hello. I’m Fallon,” said the stranger, speaking in that same singsong language that Natac now comprehended so well.

“Hello, Fallon. I am called Natac.” The warrior wondered if this might be a son or a brother to the woman called Miradel, but he quickly decided there could be no blood relation between them. Fallon was so fair in hair and skin, where she was coppery dark, and there was a fullness to Miradel’s body that seemed utterly lacking in this young fellow-who was in fact so thin that he looked frail. He wore a green shirt with red leggings, and his ears were weirdly pointed and seemed too large for his narrow face. He carried a shiny pitcher in one hand.

“Is this your house?” Natac asked.

Fallon chuckled with easy humor. “It is Miradel’s house… I help here with some of her tasks. That’s all.” With that explanation, the blond man reached into his pitcher and cupped some water in his hand. While Natac watched, he raised his hand, then breathed a puff of air across the drops of liquid.

The warrior blinked in astonishment as a cloud of mist billowed out of Fallon’s hand. The fog swirled into the midst of the foliage, settling around the tops of the leaves and blossoms. And then it began to rain! For a minute or more the vaporous shape remained in place, and Natac heard the patter of drops, saw the moisture, as if a miniature rain cloud had been summoned upon Fallon’s command. Despite his surprise, the warrior suddenly realized that was exactly what had happened.

“Forgive me… I have to finish the watering… No doubt you will find something to eat inside.”

Since that suggestion was utterly in keeping with Natac’s desire, the warrior nodded, trying to conceal his astonishment as he went back into the large white house. He entered a room that was unmistakably a kitchen, and here he found a person. She was an elderly woman, her gray hair bound into a bun. She smiled shyly as he entered, and he saw that she wore a white robe similar to his own.

“Where is Miradel?” he asked, coming to look into the pot on the stove. That cooking vessel was of a hard black substance-similar to the hinges and latch on the door of his room. When he reached into the pot, he felt the heat radiating from the sizzling food, but snatched a piece of meat anyway. He was startled by the searing temperature, but too famished to stop himself from popping the tender morsel into his mouth.

“You’ll have to be careful,” chided the woman. “This is iron… it can be heated much hotter than the stone bowls of your own land.”

“A miracle of Mictlan?” Natac asked, amused, but willing to be patient.

The old woman shook her head. “This is not Mictlan. You are in a place called Nayve.”

That brought him up short. “Do not play me for a fool, Grandmother… I know all about the land of death.” He realized with a glimmer of unease that they were speaking that language he had come to know last night. That gave him another idea. “Or is Nayve simply your name for Mictlan?”

“Mictlan is a human fiction,” replied the woman, with a hint of sternness in her tone. “You have been brought to Nayve.”

“Where is Takanatl?” demanded Natac, unhappy with her answer. “He died moments before me… I would find him, share food and a story with him.”

“Takanatl is not here… there are very few humans of Earth here. You have been brought by magic.” She hesitated, then looked at him frankly. “Miradel’s magic.”

“What is Earth? Do you speak of the world of Tlaxcala, of Mexico?”

The matron set down her spoon and pulled the iron pot off the heat. Then she crossed her arms over her chest and turned to face him. “You have much to learn, Warrior Natac.”

He blinked, surprised as she addressed him in the same words Miradel had used the night before. She continued:

“Mexico and your homeland are a very small part of Earth. In truth, it is a doomed part of that world… The place you know, the existence of your people and your tribe, will be brought to a violent end only a few years after your own death.”

“But the world is thriving!” he declared scornfully. “I myself have sanctified perhaps a hundred hearts to all the gods. And in the city of the Mexica on the day of my death I saw a thousand and more lives offered to ensure that the seasons bring rain, that the sun continues to rise into the sky.”

“And those lives were claimed by fools!” snapped the woman harshly. “Not just fools-evil fools, who invented preposterous gods, who wallowed in their endless cruelties as a means of ensuring that their own class retains power and prestige!”

Natac was stunned by this accusation. He had never during his life heard anyone speak so critically of the priesthood. Surely this person was asking for some brutal retaliation from the gods she’d insulted through their priests. Half expectant, half curious, he waited and watched. The woman’s angry gaze never left his face, and he found his convictions wilting in the glare of her furious violet eyes.

“Our priests are wise!” he retorted. “They know much, share their wisdom with the world! It is through them that we learn of the needs of the gods, that we may assure plentiful rain and good harvests each year!”

“Certainly they were wise.” The woman’s reedy voice was scornful. “They held you and your people in thrall. They did what they wanted, assured of food and treasure-and lives-through the labor of the people they fooled!”

It occurred to him, for the first time, that she might know a little more about the gods than he did-or than he thought he did. After all, judging from the evidence all around him, the priests had been more than a little misguided about Mictlan.

Only then did another idea occur to him, a horrifying thought that forced him to deny everything this female was telling him.

“You lie, old woman! My daughter… Yellow Hummingbird. She was a precious child, and beautiful. We gave her to the rain god while she was still a virgin! And for years afterward Tlaxcala was blessed with a plenitude of water from the heavens. You cannot tell me that her sacrifice was wasted.”

“I can tell you that, and I will.” This time the woman’s face softened, and he sensed sadness in the lines around her eyes and mouth. There was something familiar about that melancholy, though he didn’t make a connection. “It is tragic when a human life ends too soon-especially so when a child dies. But you will understand, Warrior Natac-I will make you understand-that the tragedy is only compounded when the life is taken capriciously, to satisfy the will of a cruel priest who refuses to acknowledge his own ignorance! Your land would have had the same rains had you allowed your child to grow into a woman, to bear you grandchildren and to brighten the world through her natural days.”

“Hummingbird…” Natac’s voice trailed into a whisper and he staggered out of the kitchen, pushing open doors to carry him onto another wide veranda. There were lofty mountains in the distance, but his eyes only vaguely registered the sight. Instead, his vision was focused inward, on memories of a black-haired innocent who had laughed upon his knee, who had garlanded her hair with flowers, who had, with heartbreaking solemnity that gradually grew into shrieking terror, been offered to the priests so that her family, her people, might be assured of steady rains.

He lifted his eyes finally, looking across a verdant valley, into a region of mountains higher than any in his experience. Great cornices of snow curled along the lofty ridges, and even the swales were bright with white snowfields. Of course, the great volcanoes of Mexico were massive summits, and had frequently been crowned by snow, but never had he seen sharp peaks, jagged and stony summits such as marked this skyline.

The mountains were dominated by a massif that must have challenged the very clouds. A huge block of gray-black stone, it was flat on the top and actually thinned to a narrow neck just below the peak. Farther down, the mountain broadened again, tumbling along steep slopes patched with snow, outcrops of rock, and verdant groves of pine trees.

He heard footsteps behind and whirled to face the gray-haired woman, knowing that rage was twisting his face into a snarl, wanting to lash out violently against the new knowledge that seemed destined only to torment him. “Every man I killed in battle-and there were a hundred or more-I killed to the greater glory of the gods. I took countless prisoners, and their hearts were torn forth, and offered to the gods! And my nation was strong-it prospered, even in the face of the mighty Aztecs!”

“Your nation was built on foolish cruelty and beliefs that were founded upon vile rot! Tlaxcala survived because the Aztec nation was just as foolish, and perhaps even more rotten at its core.”

“No!” he shouted. Rage blurred his vision, flushed his mind with hatred and denial. Natac had never struck a woman, but now he came very close to attacking this aged female. His hands curled into trembling fists, and he forced himself to draw deep, calming breaths.

“Where is Miradel?” he demanded.

“There are more things you must learn before you find the answer to that question,” the old woman said. Somehow, he found her tone soothing, and his anger slowly dissipated into a consuming wave of despair.

His focus gradually turned back to his surroundings. Again he noticed the blue lake, though now the valleys around the shore were cloaked in shadows. Indeed, the sky had paled, and twilight was creeping inward from the far horizon. Night was falling… but it was a different night than he knew.

For one thing, his shadow, though pale, was still directly below him! Awestruck, he looked up, at a sun that was straight overhead, but seemed to be moving farther and farther away.