Galen Beknighted

Chapter II

"And now the lad," the Namer continued, turning the strand of glittering metal in his hand. "The young man on the edge of knighthood. Around him the whole story turns, and in him the shards and fragments of the other tales are brought together, reassembled, and made whole. Now I can hear him, saying…"

They didn't have to search all that far.

Bayard found me up in my chambers, the obvious and most sensible place to look. Tonight, after all, was the Night of Reflections: the final, solitary soul-searching that a Knight must undergo before they lay on the hands and give him the sword and gauntlets of the Order.

Just three years ago, I would have used this as a chance to escape all the rites and responsibilities. I would have tunneled from sight, become absent in the unfathomed dark of the castle before Bayard lit the torch to guide him down the corridor from the Great Hall.

That was three years ago, when I was the Weasel.

Now, by the gods, I was keen set on passing for Sir Galen Pathwarden, for joining the lot of them-Father, Bayard, Sir Robert di Caela, and the others. But it must have seemed as though my natural bent and the soft life of Castle di Caela had betrayed me at the last moment.

For Bayard found me sprawled on the chamber floor beside a damaged table, surrounded by my belongings. The wind, not as fierce as it had been the night before but stormy and strong nonetheless, dove under the shuttered window and raised tapestry, blanket, and cape around me in billows, until it must have looked as though I had set sail once more on the currents of cowardice.

I swear that was not the story at all. After all, there is a long history of even the bravest men swooning and fainting and losing their balance when the visions come upon them.

I must have cut a striking figure-a young man of almost twenty years, facedown on a shattered dressing table, basin and towels and accessories littering the floor around me. Dressed only in a green tunic and a Solamnic breastplate, I am sure that I looked like some awkward creature such as a sow bug or a grub-some crusty thing whose business lay deep underground.

I had embarked on the Night of Reflections in all good faith. That very morning I had hastened to the di Caela treasury-the room from which old Sir Robert still mismanaged the funds of estate and holdings-and there, accompanied by two stern old geezers seated at the counting table, who must have seen the Cataclysm firsthand, I willingly gave over my earthly valuables.

"Gladly I give for the good of the Order," I began, fighting

every impulse that my past could muster. "For the good of the Order, gladly I give."

I could imagine the Weasel-myself three short years ago-looking over my shoulder and gaping, his faculties lost at the prospect of surrendering all cash and all ornament.

But I was a new man, all genuine and Solamnic and noble. Three years of instruction under Bayard Brightblade had seen to that. For despite your better judgment, despite your firm convictions that your skin is there to be saved at all costs, the constant discipline of riding until you cannot sit at table, and swordsmanship until your forearms shiver when you pick up a ladle-not to mention reading nearly twenty ponderous volumes on the Solamnic Measure- tends to thin your discretion to the point that honor and duty sound good to you.

The thought occurred to me that I had passed beyond recall when I set my coins, my naming ring, and a dozen other items of value onto the table between the distinguished Sir Elazar and the equally distinguished Sir Fernando. The old knights looked at my offering skeptically. No doubt they were unaware that Bayard had been there before them, ordering me two years ago to give all but my essential belongings to the peasants in the surrounding holdings.

I was sure that Fernando, who kept almost all of his youthful bulk (though he kept it somewhat lower now), was prepared to turn me upside down and rattle me for whatever valuables I might have hidden on my person.

"This… this is all?" he asked, his gray, bushy eyebrows bunching together like mating squirrels.

"All indeed, sir, except for one trophy of squirehood and my armor," I answered. As it had for the last six months or so, the truth felt surpassingly good in my voice.

Evidently it was less comfortable in Fernando's ears.

"'Tis just as Sir Robert warned us," he said to Sir Elazar as the two old fellows launched into discussion, as unconcerned by my presence as if I were a footstool or a slight change in the outside weather. "The Weasel here would hold back whole estates from the Order, given a place to hide them and a nodding treasurer."

"I beg your pardon, sirs, but-"

"Nobody asked you to speak, lad," Sir Elazar interrupted, calmly but sternly, sifting through my belongings with a gloved hand. "And what, pray tell, is this 'squirehood trophy' of which you speak so… reluctantly?"

"I had not noticed my… reluctance, as you call it, sir. The trophy is a simple brooch, set with glain opals given to me by the Scorpion himself as payment for betraying Bayard Brightblade, lord of this castle and the Knight I have served with some dignity, I believe, in the past several years."

"If such is the case, Weas-Galen, why then do you choose to keep these stones?" Elazar probed, his blue eyes flickering as they scanned my face for lies.

I knew it well, that flicker and scan. At one time or another, I had seen it on every face from my father's to the lovely Dannelle's. On Bayard himself, many times I had seen the look of mistrust. It had come with the territory, and those who complained of my bad swordsmanship and my paltry skills with the lance tended to forget that every time I had taken up weapons in the last year, I had fought both my opponent in the lists and old Weasel-the boy I was three years ago, a mixture of deceit and cowardice, and just the fellow everyone expected to see at each stage of my squirehood.

The truth was, I had become tired of their expectations. "I keep the stones," I explained coolly, leaning against the back of a tall mahogany chair, "only for the Night of Reflections. They remind me of my suspicious past, and yet they also serve to remind me of the first time I stood my ground and did not give in to graft. I shall donate them to the Order following my knighthood ceremony.

"If the two of you, in your experience and wisdom, have decided that I am withholding yet more treasure from the Solamnic coffers, you are free to inspect my person for it, from the inside of my mouth down to my nether parts."

Of all the vows of knighthood, that of respecting one's elders has always been the hardest for me to swallow. And after my short-tempered words there in the di Caela treasury, Sir Elazar and Sir Fernando were finding the swallowing hard themselves. They both rose to their feet with the clank of metal and the rub of leather, beneath which, if you listened attentively, you could hear old knees popping. Glowering like raptors, they stared down on the squire in front of them.

I glowered back, and I wish I could say my honesty and spunk won over the two old fellows that summer morning. But that is a tale from the old romances, where the virtue of a lad shines through his humble surroundings. This, on the other hand, was Castle di Caela.

Fernando braced himself against the counting table and hissed at me, his eyes narrowed.

"We didn't want you in the Order to begin with."

I nodded, but my critics were by no means through.

"No, we didn't want you," Elazar agreed. "You'd be astounded to know how many favors Sir Bayard has called in to win you your spurs."

Actually, I was far from astounded.

That evening, left alone for the Night of Reflections, my sword and armor and knightly belongings arrayed in front of me, I mused that indeed Bayard must have called in every favor owed him, not to mention every loan or bet.

I picked up the heavy broadsword. The blade glittered as I turned it in my hand.

Bayard had certainly risked enough on my account. Risked it from the outset, when he took it upon himself to prove that the third son of a threadbare Coastlund family, more accustomed to mischief than to the Measure, could be molded into a presentable Knight. I must admit, the long-ago adventures that followed that decision seemed to prove Bayard right-the adventure in the Vingaard Mountains and up into the pass at Chaktamir, where we hunted down the Scorpion and lifted the curse from Castle di Caela.

The problem was that once adventuring was over and daily instruction begun, Bayard was dismayed to discover that most of my resources came out under sudden stress. It seemed that I had no talent for all those things a squire was supposed to do.

How often I remember that nightmare year of training…

"Don't hold your sword like a feather duster, Galen…"

"That is a shield at your arm, not a tent, Galen…"

"Here is what happened in the rest of the tournament, Galen, after you fell from your horse and were knocked unconscious…"

So it had progressed, through a series of mishaps and head injuries, until, scarcely a month ago, Bayard had taken me aside, grasped me firmly by the shoulders, and expressed his confidence that at last I would attain the knighthood 1 had so devoutly come to pursue.

"I don't know what to do with you, Galen," he said. "The Order of the Sword is beyond you, as you prove every time you take up arms or sit a horse. And the Order of the Rose, with its dedication to wisdom and justice, well…"

I nodded, wise enough at least to understand what Bayard was too polite to say.

"But there is the Order of the Crown," he pronounced, "whose primary duties are those of loyalty and obedience. Obedience is… the hardest thing for you. But by the gods, you are loyal to me and to the Lady Enid, to your own family, and to the idea of becoming a Knight, which has put you through embarrassments and humiliations the likes of which no lad should undergo."

I tried to smile bravely and cheerily. Bayard stared at me for a long, reflective moment, then shook me vigorously until my dented, oversized helmet dropped smartly on the bridge of my nose.

"Loyal you are, Weasel, and three years ago I'd not have thought you capable of it. And if someday you achieve half of what I think you're incapable of, you'll be an excellent Knight."

I blinked at the compliment.

"So keep quiet and do nothing" Bayard concluded, "even if you think it will improve your chances for knighthood, for the odds are that whatever you do will misfire. Leave the rest to me, and afterward to your own loyalty."

So I had done, and now it was the Night of Reflections. Setting the sword aside, I had picked up my helmet. Dented and pockmarked it was, but the best I had under the circumstances. It was not the appearance that bothered me now; it was how I might marshal the tactics to adorn it.

Setting a helmet is a tricky thing, you see, especially among the Solamnic Orders, caught up as they are with chivalry and pomp and show and kindness to women. On ceremonious occasions, a Knight is expected to wear a favor on his helmet-an item of his lady's clothing, whether it be glove or scarf or, in some absurd cases, a slipper. This is meant to signify a special attachment between said Knight and said lady-a sentiment in keeping with courtliness and romance and general goodwill.

I practically had to pry a glove from Dannelle di Caela's clenched fist-I had developed an uncomfortable and delightful interest in her of late. On my knees yesterday at the foot of the great marble staircase, the hall around me loud with arriving Knights and the rustle of nosy servants and the occasional shrill of a mechanical cuckoo, brashly I dared her to embarrass me before all present, to refuse me the token in public because I knew she would in private.

Flushed, a little angry, she had stopped at the top of the stairs. I had shouted my request full voice in the corridor, and Father and Alfric, awaiting me by the entrance to the Great Hall, gaped up at the lovely red-haired girl who stared daggers down at me. Everyone was breathless at my breach of etiquette.

"I… I have heard tales about you, Master Galen," Dannelle replied in a rigid, formal voice that let me know I had already won.

"It would please me were you not to repeat ill-founded rumors in front of my esteemed father," I shouted merrily, gesturing at the old fart by the entrance, "so as not to spoil his enjoyment of seeing a dear son knighted in the twilight of his life."

Dannelle glared angrily at me, caught in the strictures of decorum. She spun about, the hem of her gray dress rising like a cyclone, and stomped away toward her quarters upstairs, stopping only for the briefest of moments to hurl a glove suitorward.

A knot of silk and sequins, it struck the step above me with a commanding thwack. I took it as a sign of her increasing interest.

Dannelle's, however, was not the only token available. On the table in front of me also lay an item of more intimate apparel, supplied by one Marigold Celeste, one of the Lady Enid's distant cousins and a formidable sort to reckon with.

I vowed, as I had vowed often before, not to think of Marigold. I turned my thoughts from that black lace item, not even speculating as to how or why in the world one would wear such a thing.

Slowly, pensively, I had picked up my glain opal brooch from where it lay amidst other, less marketable things-a dog whistle and a pair of old sun-hardened leather gloves. In its humble surroundings, the brooch stood out like the opals against the silver circle in which they were set.

Long ago the stones had fallen into my possession, a bribe from a treacherous enemy. Now, set in a silver circle, they seemed more respectable-almost tamed, as though their shadowy beginning had nothing to do with this time and with the lad who held them.

Uneasily, I held the piece of jewelry up to candlelight. It had been scarcely a week since I had taken the stones from the old leather pouch, in which they had resided since they were given to me, and sent them to the local jeweler to have them set in a brooch. It had cost a pretty sum, but it seemed worth it: At night of late, when the high wind raced down from the hills unto the castle, whipping about the battlements and through the window, my belongings would shake on their perches and shelves and places of storage. On those nights, I could swear I heard the opals click together in the darkness, as though they were trying to speak.

As though on cue, again the wind rose suddenly. The candle sputtered and went out.

"I have heard of drafty castles," I muttered, "but this…"

I could not complete the feeble sentiment, for a cold mist followed in the wake of the wind, smelling of old water and ice and cavernous gloom. Somehow it carried upon it a terrible loneliness and sadness, so that as the mist passed over me, I wanted to cry out, to moan and blubber for no reason I could name or understand.

The whole chamber tensed, as though it awaited some monstrous change.

It was then that the shapes appeared. They took form out of the heart of the opals and the smoke from the extinguished candle. At first it seemed like a trick of reflected light-that a vapor had fallen from the night air, out of the confusion of wind and weather, and rested in the centermost opal. But the darkness hung all about the brooch, a greater dark inside of the dark, turning and boiling and adopting a solid shape.

Then the stones seemed to open in front of me, and Plainsmen appeared in the jeweled blackness. They moved silently, smoothly, with a motion born in the grasslands, where they ran with the deer and the leopard. Still too surprised to be frightened, I squinted to see them more clearly in the tricky light.

There were six figures, gaunt and dusty and tall, wrapped in furs and wearing old ornaments of beads and claws and leather thongs. Beneath the folds of mist-or was it fur? — draped over them, I could see their skin, weathered and tough, as though a century of winds and rain had descended upon them.

Their leader was the oldest, the tallest. On his head he wore the skull of an antelope, his graying forelocks streaming through its vacant eyes, its tall, thin rack of antlers lending him height and a fearsome otherworldliness, as though he were no Plainsman at all, but a thing out of nature or beyond it.

He scanned the landscape in front of him slowly, intently, as though he had forgotten something, had left something behind here. Then his gaze pierced the surface of the stone and rested upon me, and for a moment, his eyes flickered like a distant display of fireworks, green and beyond sound and at the faintest edge of sight.

I swallowed hard and gripped the arms of my chair. If I was expected to say something, I was confounded if I knew what it was. I started to hail the spectral figures in front of me, to offer them greetings or salute but most of all to find out who they were and what they wanted. I opened my mouth, but the leader cut me short, raising a lean hand and staring at me without malice or venom, or even all that much attention. He seemed to be looking somewhere beyond me, though he looked straight at me at the same time.

Slowly and dramatically, he beckoned. He motioned me. to follow him into the center of the stone.

"Not on your life," I muttered, my right hand moving quickly from the chair to the sword on the table in front of me. Suddenly, in the black center of the topmost stone, the Great Hall of di Caela appeared. I blinked and looked again.

As if focusing my gaze, the scene in the opal shifted from wall to wall, resting finally on the high, curtained balcony from which in a nightmare time several years behind me, I had watched the Scorpion announce his evil presence in a hall dark with solemnity and night.

There, amidst the story of Huma carved in the marble frieze that covered the balcony ledge, my brother Brithelm's shape had joined the Knights and the dragons and the obscure tendrils of marble greenery.

As I watched, the stone shape turned and looked at me.

Brithelm's eyes were empty and obscure, his hair and skin dull, as though I watched him through a veil of webbing and mist. Slowly, emerging from the frieze like a cobra rising to strike, a pale hand, a knife in its grip, took shape from the stone and the smoke. Turning toward my brother, it set blade to his throat.

The white of the marble split in a dark red line. And surely enough, all light and sound seemed to retreat, and I seemed to see my brother at the end of a gray and swirling tunnel.

I cried out. Brithelm's eyes rested on me.

Then, as though he had heard me, he shrank back into the dark of the jewel, passing soundlessly into mist and rock, the sides of the opal converging above him like water converges to cover a sinking stone. The Plainsmen vanished along with him, as though they followed him into the dark. One of them carried a torch that glowed with a green, muted flame that cast its light only on the receding figures themselves, as though they drew in its radiance and absorbed it, leaving the rest of the room in shadows. I stumbled to my feet, reeling, as the Plainsmen drifted into the darkness of the thing in my hand.

From where I stood, they looked like pillars of light as they faded away. That light was the last thing I remembered until Bayard stood above me, shaking and waking me.