Galen Beknighted

Chapter III

First of all, visions were never my strength.

They smack of magic, which for the most part, I do not credit.

For I have seen the illusionists early and late, dressed in the glittering robes embroidered with moons and stars and pentagons and strange planetary designs, sitting on horseback at the edge of the mist-covered drawbridge outside my boyhood home in Coastlund, camped in their eerie, geometrical tents on the plains outside Castle di Caela.

Everywhere that I have seen the magicians, they are trying to get indoors.

Once inside, once they are warm and fed and paid and provided for, I grant you that their tricks can be something to behold. I saw one elderly man set his apprentice on fire.

The boy moved through my father's hall, stepping gracefully around broken crockery, snoring dogs, and capsized tables. All the while his hair and fingers were aflame, and yet no heat touched him.

Once I saw a great glittering stone brought forth from the folds of a dramatic red robe. The bearer of that stone spoke some brief, inaudible words above it, and the crystal clouded. Out of the light and mist at its heart, I saw a room of eggs and bizarre, grotesque creatures hatching from them-half man, but also half lizard or eft or dragon or something. And then, before the vision faded, I saw the stone, or one like it, glowing green and amber, embedded in the chest of a young man.

That was a wondrous night's entertainment, for it was a vision beyond my most fanciful imaginings.

Yet there is always hypnosis. There are mirrors that a clever man can set at just the right angle to reflect the firelight. There are strings and pulleys, secret pockets and panels.

I have always been prone to explain anything by its tricks and its hidden machinery. Indeed, though my own adventures had taught me that there was genuine magic in the world, sometimes at my very doorstep, I was inclined to forget that in my search for reasonable explanations.

So it was as I lay safely on my own bed, puzzling over the cryptic vision of the Plainsman. All the candles were lit in the room, the logs in the fireplace burning as brightly as poor Bayard could manage at a moment's notice. He had discovered and wakened me, and now he was fuming about the room, gathering my belongings, his impatience rising as, caught up in my thoughts, I let him and the page he had brought with him do all the preparations.

"I want things light around me," I said. "I want things visible."

Almost by reflex, the boy lit yet another candle.

"This is no time for dramatics, Galen," Bayard observed quietly. "If for no other reason, you will become a Knight out of simple good manners."

He was downright intimidating in full Solamnic armor. He stood above me like a king from the old stories instead of the man I had seen bedraggled by rain, thrown from his horse in the mountains, or dozing by countless campfires in our long and difficult travels together.

It was as if the armor enlarged him, made him more than what he was, or at least more than he was while he snored or endured bedragglement. Right now he was formidable, banishing the memory of my six spectral visitors almost entirely.

I sat up.

Bayard folded his arms.

"Put on the armor, Galen," he declared flatly. "You realize, don't you, how dishonorable it is to doze on the Night of Reflections?"

"I beg your pardon? 'Doze,' did you say?"

With a rough shove, Bayard pushed me back down onto the bed. Sensing a confrontation, the page scurried to the opposite end of the room.

"Dozed. Drifted away. Nodded off. How long have you been asleep?" Bayard asked curtly.

I sat up, this time more hesitantly. "But I wasn't asleep, Bayard!" I shouted. "I was-"

He shoved me back onto the bed again.

"I thought I had seen it all from you," he declared, his gray eyes glittering, his teeth clenched. For a moment, I understood what it meant to be at the receiving end of his sword, and I blamed neither goblin nor ogre nor enemy Knight for turning and running away.

Unfortunately, I had no such options. I stood-or rather sat-my ground, and the chambers grew dreadfully silent except for the crackle of the fire and the sound of the page's rag squeaking diligently across embossed metal. By the time the boy was done with being unnoticed in my corner, the shield would shine like Solinari.

Bayard stood completely still, in that unforgiving silence of those who are, when all is said and done, better than you. The light from the candles seemed to sink and gutter.

"All of it!" he continued quietly, though his voice began to rise in irritation. "Mishap in the lists and chaos in the saddle, the unwelcome opinion of every veteran Solamnic who maintained you should be passed over and sent back to Coastlund. Put up with it all, I did, because something in me believed that you had the stomach for Knighthood-that out in the swamp and the mountains and up in the pass at Chaktamir, something had taught you a lesson, that you had come away from adventure more honest and wise and eager.

"So much for what I believed," he spat angrily. "You couldn't even watch through the night."

He raised his hand again, and before he could strike me, I had slipped off the bed and onto the floor. I crouched and glared at him, fists doubled. Bayard's eyes widened in surprise, and I heard a shuffling sound as the page dove under the shield he was polishing.

Now the silence downstairs erupted into a swift Palanthan dance, then faded into disarray as the musicians realized they knew different versions of the song. From the far end of my hallway, a mechanical bird trilled an off-key melody and then lay silent.

At that sound, and at long last, Bayard smiled.

"It seems as though Enid has forgotten one," he said, softly but audibly.

"Forgotten, Bayard?"

"The bird at the end of the hall."

"Survivor of the Great Dismantling of Two Twenty Eight," I proclaimed, and we both laughed.

"Most of them gone the way of dwarf spirits and dog runs," Bayard added, "since the Lady Enid took over the care of the castle from her father."

He looked down at me and frowned.

"If not sleep, then just what was it, Weasel?"

"Galen," I corrected, picking up the greaves. Slowly the boy approached me, holding the shield in front of him like… well, like a shield. 'Sir Galen,' it's about to be, and I'd like to go by 'Galen' henceforth, unless you're taking the advice of your elders and burying me in the provinces."

'Then 'Galen' it will be. Damn it, Galen, help the boy!" Bayard snapped, after the page spent a useless moment fumbling with strings on my person.

It was my answer, such as it was.

I sighed deeply as the boy attached the breastplate more snugly, then took the old, outsized greaves from my hands.

Bayard paced to the door and looked down the hall impa tiently. "Assemble yourself!" he snapped. "It wasn't a week ago that you were my squire…"

"And a good one I was, sir," I lied, casting a sidelong glance at the poor boy, who was beginning to sweat and tremble, his fingers fumbling at the laces.

"Well, buckle some buckle, or tie something yourself."

"Armor was always my weakness, sir," I stalled, picking up the ceremonial helmet as though it belonged to someone else, tugging the greave laces from the page's hands in the process. The boy whimpered and fell onto his stomach.

"I recall others," Bayard declared, "along with some you probably do not remember. Be consoled that at least the years have taken away no genuine talent in much of anything squirely. Raphael!"

Bayard tossed a key to the page.

"Get to my quarters and bring me a sword-any sword except the Nerakan disemboweler I took as a trophy from the pass at Chaktamir."

"Which would be a little fanciful," I observed sourly, and Bayard turned back to me.

"As I said, Raphael," he continued, his eyes on me, "virtually any sword will do, as long as the blade and the handle are… recognizably different."

The horns and drums resumed in the Great Hall below us. They struck up a dance tune from Coastlund, usually played by the peasants when a cow calved. The musicians were straining, kept so long that they had nearly run out of music. As Raphael went out the door, Bayard turned to me, setting himself to the task of assembling a version of a Knight for the evening.

"It is time to make you a Knight," he declared, "dozing or not. Before the Great Hall descends to dog races or sword-play."

We glanced toward my belongings, scattered over and under the table.

"Not exactly a knightly inventory," I pronounced.

"Oh, I don't know," Bayard said politely, even kindly. "A dagger. A pair of stained, heavy gloves. Half a dozen glain opals and a tarnished dog whistle. Each has been good company to you, in its way, if I recall."

I nodded.

"Castle di Caela seems smaller, Bayard."

"Smaller? Suck in that stomach so I can tighten this breastplate. Maybe that's because you don't fit through the doorways like you used to, Galen. Soft living is demanding payment from your waistline, boy. If you're showing weight at nineteen, when you're my age you'll be-"

"Another Ramiro of the Maw, sprawled over two chairs in the dining room, drooling on the kinswomen?"

"Don't be so desolate, boy. Or so disrespectful. And do suck in that stomach."

"You don't understand, Bayard. Ever since the curse on Castle di Caela was lifted… well, things are better, I'll grant you that. But now this is just another old building on the plains-stone and mortar, wood and hair and iron, and maybe a legend or two to give it some color for visitors."

"What would you have, Galen? Ghosts in the dungeon? Spectral family members dangling from ropes?" asked Bayard, bending over to pick up one of my boots.

I remembered the face of the Plainsman chieftain and shuddered.

"By the way," Bayard continued impatiently, "it's high time you decided on a squire, boy. By tomorrow at the latest.

"Nonetheless, I do understand. I know what you mean," he conceded. "It's as though a sense of order has settled about things, putting them all in a proper place and banishing intruders and disrupters."

"Banishing the dwarf spirits, too," I offered distractedly.

Bayard nodded. "And the dog runs."

He stepped away from me for a moment, and walked toward the closet. "I just can't believe it, Galen," he said, the irritation from a moment before returning. With a sudden, flickering movement, he tossed one of my boots to me. It struck the floor by my bed with a firm slap, raising dust.

"I just can't believe it. That with your knighthood ahead of you, and the one thing holding you to the Code and Measure your simple desire to go through with this… how you could risk it all for an hour's sleep!"

"Risk it?"

"Well," Bayard said, reaching for the other boot. "According to the Measure, the Night of Reflections must be spent 'in watching and in long thought, from sunset again unto sunset, for even the light of day is dark when the memory ranges.'"

"But it was watching, Bayard!" I protested. "Watching and the longest thoughts of all. As I was trying to tell you, Bayard, it was not sleep. It was… it was a vision!"

Bayard looked at me skeptically. Slowly the faintest hint of a smile spread across his face, widening and widening until he could contain his amusement no longer. My protector began to laugh, and the further I explained, the deeper and more uncontrolled his amusement became. He leaned against the closet, struggling for breath and balance, shaking his head in wonderment as I concluded my account of the Plainsmen, of Brithelm, and of the strange visitation.

"So… so they wanted you to follow them into the brooch?" he gasped.

Sullenly I nodded.

"Oh, this smacks of the old days!" he exclaimed. "One dodge after another, to avoid duty and danger and chores and-"

"Very well, then!" I exclaimed angrily, taking an aggressive step toward Bayard before my better judgment reminded me he was stronger, quicker, and wiser in the ways of combat. "Call it sleep and be done with it! Done with me, for that matter!"

"And what am I supposed to think?" Bayard answered, his laughter fading. He took up the laces on my greaves once more.

From the bed, the black eyes of the brooch stared up at me.

"That I must be losing my mind, sir?" I asked mournfully.

In the brief silence that followed, I gathered the whistle and the brooch into my hand and clicked them together for noise-any noise.

My old companion smiled once again, though this time his eyes were troubled. He tugged at the laces of the breastplate. The air rushed out of me, and I reeled for a moment, my hand on the bedpost.

I turned and faced the window. Outside, the banners cracked and fluttered on the parapets, catching the last red shower of sunlight as the day went down behind the mountains. I suddenly felt silly. No matter what I said, my past was the translator. It sounded as though I would stop at nothing to avoid knighthood. Even hallucinations.

"Never mind," I said quietly, tossing the items back onto the bed. "It was just a trick of the light in the corridor."

Again the wind was rising. It promised to be a hazardous night.

"There will be time for 'tricks of light' after you are knighted," Bayard maintained, stepping away from me and leaning against the mantel of the fireplace, his shadow long and dark against the window. "Time, no doubt, for other tricks, seeing as how you've spent the Night of Reflections. But now we are about other business, when the food has been prepared, the musicians hired, and the guests seated for nearly an hour."

"Somehow I do not think that you have things in their… order of importance, sir," I protested, picking up the dog whistle and turning it over in my hand.

"Brithelm's, this was," I breathed.

"I know, lad," Bayard said softly. He stood and put his hand on my shoulder. For a moment, we paused, our thoughts on my brother's little camp high in the storm-imperiled Vingaard Mountains.

Outside, the wind died down, and below us I could hear the musicians start up again, a kender trail song that showed they had been stretched to the end of all musical taste and knowledge.

"Remember, Galen," Bayard whispered, "that Brithelm is the Pathwarden with visions. You're as sane as anyone in this bedlam of a castle-as sane as Robert or Brandon or your father, and they're Solamnic Knights of the first order. Like it or not, you will be a Solamnic Knight of the Crown by tomorrow, Galen Pathwarden Brightblade."

"But-"

"And I do not care if you have some kind of problem with honor or decency or sanity or any other thing Solamnic. You will put on the armor, and then… well, we shall see what happens. I trust that the armor will do its job."

It did not sound all that foresighted to me. And yet Bayard's words were bolstering, as if he believed that something would come to pass when I put on the armor. Instantly I thought of legends: of Arden Greenhand, whose magical armor would change into a cloud at his bidding, or of Sir Lysander of Hylo, whose breastplate bore a map of the world that could transport him across the continent to any body of land he touched upon that map.

And yet, despite our tugging and tying, the armor I wore was secondhand, far too loose for me, and far too ordinary. Not only was it scarcely the stuff of legends, it was not a bit magical or fanciful or even all that attractive to begin with.

"The armor's job here seems to be to weigh me down and net me in its laces, sir," I argued. "But I am sure you have a deeper insight into this mystery."

"Luskinian ethics," Bayard said proudly.

"I beg your pardon, sir?"

"Surely you know the luskin, Galen? Surely Gileandos taught you that much."

"My education has been uneven, sir, guided by Gileandos's gin and whim, it seems. I obviously don't know what you want me to know about the luskin. A little gray bird, as I recall. A sometime singer who relies on the other birds to raise its young."

"Who in their youth behave as sparrows or starlings," Bayard added. "Or wrens or whatever, depending on whose nest their mother chooses to leave them in."

"All well and good, Bayard, and masterful natural history. But I don't see-"

"Luskinian ethics. 'If you look like one and are treated like one, the time will come when you act like one.' "

"This is not a great insight, sir."

"Nonetheless. Finish with the armor."

As I assembled myself quietly, giving last attention to the polish of the helmet, its crest, and its foolish feather, which looked as though a bird-a luskin, I hoped devoutly-had plunged to its death atop my head, Raphael returned bearing a sword the likes of which I dreaded he would bring back-a big, two-handed appliance as long as I was tall and heavy enough to set me unbalanced as I walked. I lifted it over my head with a grunt, then painfully slipped it into the scabbard at my waist, where it rested awkwardly, a good six inches of its blade still uncovered.

"I fear I have cracked through my eggshell into an eagle's nest," I complained to Bayard, who chuckled again and shook his head.

I shivered, and not with the wind that was rising higher and higher again, rattling the windows and coursing underneath the sill, where it staggered the flame of a candle and lifted a paper from my desk. Raphael moved quickly to shut the window more tightly as Bayard stepped to the door and, opening it, turned and beckoned to me.

It was an ominous image, as though again I was called into the heart of the stones.

Yet this ceremony was what I had trained and waited for, the moment I had achieved despite the predictions of almost everyone in Castle di Caela. Gathering whistle and gloves, I stuffed them into the pocket of my tunic and, my hands clammy but unshaking, pinned my cape about my shoulders with the opal brooch.

'Tonight you could almost pass for chivalrous, Galen," Bayard conceded as I followed him into the corridor and, in a swim of candles and music, descended the stairwell into the Great Hall.

I remember that night only fitfully. The torchlight from the sconces in the Great Hall of Castle di Caela shone brightly and deeply on the dark tables and the flushed faces of visitors-for after all, I had delayed matters, and wine had passed freely in the meantime.

It shone on the faces of my Pathwarden kin: my father, proud, rising to his feet in spite of himself with some of his old military firmness as Bayard handed me the sword. The others, noticing the old man's gesture and mistaking it for something we did at such times in Coastlund, stood also.

Nobody ever knew it was Father's private way of thanking the gods that one of his sons-even if it was the least promising of the three-had finally put on Solamnic armor. But Sir Robert stood, and Ramiro, and Brandon after them, and then even those self-important bluestockings Elazar and Fernando.

Dannelle di Caela stood also, though she did not seem to revel in it. She stared through me with those brilliant green eyes, and I hoped devoutly that she did not believe the rumors. In dismay, I realized I had forgotten her glove entirely and that the single foolish feather was my helmet's only adornment.

I remember the chant of an elven bard, the choiring women who heralded my approach to the place of honor on the raised platform. My brief but full enjoyment of the scarcely hidden contempt on the face of Gileandos, and the faint, surprising remorse I felt to see Alfric stand in my honor, his eyes dull, expressionless, and distracted, as though he labored under a strange and mortal disease.

I remember the ceremony itself. Remember kneeling as Bayard, Sir Robert, and my father stood before me, their large hands on the pommel of my sword, and the solemn words I must keep secret passed between us in whispers as the music swelled and deepened. Then the Vow of the Sword, the Crown, and the Rose-to defend, to adhere, and above all, to understand.

Then Bayard's hands pressed upon my shoulders and turned me to face those gathered in the hall, and my eyes passed over all of them.

Over Brandon, who stared toward the huge marble fireplace, unfocused and sad, as though he looked through the flames onto a distant, wronged country.

Over Ramiro, who stopped wrestling with a side of beef long enough to pay polite attention to what transpired on the platform in front of him.

Over Marigold, who mouthed something delightful and alluring and almost obscene when she caught my eye.

Over Dannelle, who turned away.

Then over Gileandos, distant and disdaining. Over Alfric, who looked up at me with a strange half-smile, then averted his eyes, staring disconsolately at the untouched food on his platter.

Bayard stepped down from the dais into the midst of my people, his big hands raised in solemn triumph. Flanking him, my father and Sir Robert marched to their seats, their years falling away with each measured step until, standing beside their chairs, softened and redeemed by the shifting firelight, you could squint and see them as they must have appeared a half century before in the pass at Chaktamir, the Nerakan army bearing down on their small but resolute band.

All eyes were on me now, all the guests facing me. I raised my borrowed sword, and like the older Knights had told me would happen, like none of the wise men-not even Gileandos — could ever explain, the blade of the sword shimmered with a thousand colors: through greens and yellows and reds into others I cannot name because I had never seen them until this night.

Through it all, the choir sang a ceremonial hymn as old as the Age of Light:

"Beyond the wild, impartial skies

Have you set your lodgings,

In cantonments of stars, where the sword aspires

In an arc of yearning, where we join in singing."

From the dark, color-spangled hall, a man's voice- Fernando's, I believe-joined in the chorus. Then Bayard took up the song, and Father, and the others.

"Grant to him a warrior's rest

Above our singing, above song itself.

May the ages of peace converge in a day;

May he dwell in the heart of Paladine.

"And set the last spark of his eyes

In a fixed and holy place,

Above words and the borrowed land too loved

As we recount the ages."

I tried to join in, but the words shifted in and out of my recollection. Instead of the images of the six ages of man, I remembered the scene at the heart of the stone: the Plainsmen, the pale hand, the knife at my brother's throat. The smell of old grasslands rose to meet me. That is the last thing I remember of the ceremonies.

It is only later I recall coming to, lying on the bed in my own quarters, my armor removed and arranged neatly on the table in front of me-no doubt the handiwork of young Raphael. There, surrounded by candles and silence, by my polished Solamnic trappings, I tried to sleep, and you would think it would be easy, having weathered a night and day of vigilance only to be assaulted hourly by spectral visitations.

You would think a lad would be too tired for thought.

And yet I lay wide-eyed until morning, and it was my brother and the Plainsmen who filled my dark imaginings.