Ivanhoe Gambit

14

Andre woke up to the sound of music, but it was music unlike anything that she had ever heard. The recorder did not sound strange to her, but the instruments of the symphony orchestra that supported it in the concerto by Bartok both mesmerized and frightened her. Her fear and lack of understanding were compounded by the fact that the sound came from all around her, yet she saw no musicians. Had she been transported to some faery land? Had she died?

She sat up slowly, then stood upon the floor, looking all around her. Where was the music coming from? What strange instruments produced such sounds?

She was in a woodsman's cabin, but this was the abode of no ordinary woodsman. This cabin had a floor and shutters… She opened one of the shutters and saw that it was night outside. Night! And yet it was bright as daylight in the cabin. It was warm, although she could see no fire. In the center of the room, there stood some strange black apparatus with an appendage that stretched out of its top and through the ceiling. It squatted on four legs like some evil gnome. It was from this black thing that the warmth emanated. She reached out and touched it, then jerked her hand back quickly. It had burned her. It was like touching fire. She backed away, moving toward the bed once more. She sat down, mystified.

Suddenly, she moved quickly toward the door and flung it open, thinking to escape the evil place. The sorcerer stood before her.

"Going somewhere?" Hunter said.

She backed into the room. "I am damned, then," she said softly.

Hunter raised his eyebrows. "What makes you say that?"

"I have escaped from the clutches of one wizard only to fall into the hands of another," she said. "This is what comes of serving the devil's own. There will be no escape for me. My soul is forfeit. What do you want of me? Am I to suffer your revenge for killing the other wizard? I do not even know how that happened. I cannot think. It is all too much to reason out. Do with me what you will and make an end of it."

"Are you finished?"

"I have nothing more to say."

"Well, that's good. Sit down. Please."

She sat.

"First of all," said Hunter, "your soul is not in peril, at least, not from me. I serve neither God nor the devil, I serve myself. If you prefer to think of me as a sorcerer, go right ahead, I won't stop you. It so happens that I'm not a sorcerer, or a wizard, or a warlock, or anything else except a man. I realize that may be hard for you to accept right now, but try."

"But the magic-"

"Is not magic. At least, not in the sense that you understand it. To some savage who has never seen a suit of armor, a knight would seem to be a devilish apparition. Imagine, if you can, that you have never seen an armored knight. That you know nothing of the craft involved in making armor, that you know nothing of its properties. Having lived in a world in which a knight has never been seen, might you not assume, upon seeing one, that it was not even a human being you were seeing, but some terrifying creature whose flesh was metal animated by black magic? Well, as uncomplimentary as it may seem, in this case, I am that knight and you are that savage. What I do seems like magic to you because you do not understand it and you know nothing of the craft involved. I merely have more knowledge than you have."

He reached for a bottle of bourbon.

"Would you like some?"

"What is it?" said Andre, cautiously.

"A beverage. No mystical potion, I promise you. It's made from a mash of corn and malt and rye. It's called whiskey. The effects of drinking it are much like drinking ale, only this is a far more potent brew."

He held out the bottle and Andre took it carefully.

Her eyes bulged after the first swallow and she coughed. "By God! You drink this swill?"

"It takes some getting used to," Hunter said, "because of its strength. Once you grow accustomed to the taste, you actually enjoy it."

"It does give a pleasant warmth," said Andre.

"Just drink a little," Hunter said. "To one who's never had a taste before, the effects can be overpowering, like giving ale to an infant."

"This knowledge of which you spoke," she said, "you called it a craft. Yet, there is a craft to magic, is there not? It is one thing to craft a suit of armor, and yet it is another to bring forth music from the empty air and to appear and disappear at will. How can this not be magic? And this black apparatus which gives forth heat-"

"Is called a stove," said Hunter. "Look." He kicked open the door, showing the flames inside. "Nothing but a fancy fireplace, only a more efficient one. All it is is metal to contain a fire of wood and coal."

"But will the metal not grow red and soft from the fire's heat?" said Andre.

"Not if it's made properly," said Hunter. "The metal is thick and the fire is never hot enough to soften it. Simple, isn't it?"

"And this metal tube?"

"Is just a chimney to carry the smoke away."

"And the music?"

"That's a little harder to explain," said Hunter.

"I will attempt to understand."

"Well… let me put it this way. There are musical instruments with which you are familiar, such as the wood flute and the lute, for instance. There are other musical instruments which you have never heard of. They produce very different sounds. Look here," he said, showing her the sound system. "All this is is a device that records the sound of music made by musicians. Just as a monk records holy works on paper, through the art of writing, so this device records sounds. It reproduces them."

"How?"

"How. Good question. How do you explain electronic recording to a woman of the Middle Ages? Well, for now, you'll just have to be satisfied with this: there is a method of preserving sounds made by a musician. The method of preserving spoken words is called writing. One speaks, another writes those words down and later, still another who knows how to read can reproduce those words by reading what was written. In a way, this is similar, but the knowledge involved is far greater. This is a… tool… which preserves sounds, just as writing preserves words. Only with this tool, there is no need of reading. The tool records the sounds and then plays them back to you. It can even reproduce the sound of your own voice. Perhaps I'll show you, later."

"This is not magic?"

"No, it is a simple craft, but men will not know how to make such tools for many, many years to come."

"Then how have you learned this?"

Hunter sighed. "I was afraid you were going to ask that."

"The knowledge is secret, then."

"No, it's not a secret, it's just… very difficult to explain."

"I would like to learn, if this is possible."

"Oh, it's possible, all right, but you're going to have to be very patient. And forbearing."

"It will not endanger my soul to learn of this?"

"It will not."

"Do you dare swear this before God?" said Andre.

"I swear this before God."

Andre frowned. "I do not think a sorcerer can so swear. Very well, then, I will risk to listen."

Hunter sighed. "Where do I begin?"

"At the beginning, if this is not asking too much," said Andre.

Hunter shrugged. "What the hell? All right. I was a soldier."

"A man at arms?"

"A man at arms, if you will. Now shut up and listen. And don't interrupt. I was a soldier. I served in an army mightier than anything you have ever seen or heard of. An army that will not exist for centuries."

Andre started to speak, but held back.

"Thank you. I said you would have to be patient. Try to imagine what it must have been like for the first men to walk the earth. And the first women, too. They were simple savages, little more than animals. They had not yet discovered fire or clothing. They did not know how to build shelters, so they slept in the open or in caves. They knew only how to eat and kill and little else. For their weapons, they used simple clubs of wood or axes made of stone. Now, take such a man or woman and imagine what it would be like for them today, if they were to suddenly be transported to this time and place. They would see castles and not know what they were, since they did not know how to build with stone and wood. They would see a crossbow or an arbalest and think it was the work of the devil, for they would know nothing of the craft involved in making such weapons. They would see armored knights and take them for horrifying monsters or even gods."

Andre nodded slowly.

"Now, what if we were able, you and I, to have some mastery over time?" said Hunter. "What if we had a mode of travel that would take us not from one place to another, but from one time to another? What if I were to take you far into the future, to this very place, only a thousand years from now? You would be like that savage from the dawn of time, failing to comprehend everything you saw around you, for with time, man's knowledge grows ever greater. What would you see a thousand years from now?"

"I do not know."

"I'll tell you. You would see cities a thousand times greater than the towns you know. You would see many more people. You would see a world in which simple wagons and carts had been replaced by conveyances that would enable you to make a journey that would now take you months in just a matter of minutes. Just as men have learned to craft a crossbow or a suit of armor, so will they have learned to build devices that enable them to fly."

"To fly!"

"A thousand years from now," said Hunter, "flying will be as commonplace as riding a horse is today. You would look at those men and women of the future and think that they were gods, or sorcerers, since you would not understand how they can do the things they do. They will live much longer than people do today, for they will have learned to overcome disease. They will wear different clothing. They will have machines-artifacts they made-perform work for them that men must do for themselves today, only these machines will do the work far more efficiently and much faster. They will have even traveled to the stars."

Andre sighed, shaking her head.

"You think I'm mad," Hunter said. "Listen to me. When the first crossbow was made, it was said that the world was coming to an end. How could the society of man survive such a devastating weapon? Yet, a thousand years from now, there will be weapons so devastating that they will make the crossbow seem like the wooden club of the simple savage."

Hunter took out his. 45 and held it up so she could see it.

"This is one such weapon. And there are others, far more powerful than you could imagine in your wildest nightmares."

Andre stared at the gun. "It does not look very formidable," she said. "What use would it be against a crossbow or a sword?"

Hunter smiled. "Watch," he said. He cocked the weapon and aimed it at a bottle on the shelf. He fired and the bottle shattered in an explosion of glass and whiskey.

Andre turned pale. "Sorcery," she whispered.

"No," said Hunter. "In a way, it is something like a crossbow, in that it shoots a projectile. The crossbow shoots a bolt or quarrel. This gun," he showed it to her and, in spite of herself, she leaned forward to look at it more closely, "shoots a tiny piece of lead. It has functioning parts, just like a crossbow, only there are more of them and they take a great deal of skill to make."

He removed the clip and he began to disassemble the gun.

"You see, there are many parts to this weapon. I will explain in the simplest way, just so you understand the principle. When I pull back on the slide here, it brings the bullet into position. The gun is now prepared to function. When I gently squeeze the trigger, it acts on these other parts here, so, and this hammer falls on the end of the bullet. This little metal piece here, the firing pin, strikes the primer, which causes the powder in the case to ignite. This creates a tremendous force which pushes the lead out of the case and down this barrel here with very great speed, causing it to fly out of the gun here, like an arrow leaves a bow, only far faster than the eye can follow. The sound you hear is caused by the force created when the powder ignites, and this same force causes the slide to be moved back again, bringing the next bullet into position. You can feel this force when you shoot the weapon. Would you like to try?"

"You would trust me with this magic weapon?"

"I'll be right next to you," said Hunter, smiling. "If you attempt to use it against me, I have enough skill to take it away from you before you can employ it."

"How do I use it?" she said.

He cocked the gun, having reassembled it, then stood at her side, carefully placing it into her hand and showing her how to take the proper position. She aimed, long and carefully, then gently squeezed the trigger. The. 45 bucked in her hand and the bottle shattered. She almost dropped the gun.

"You see?"

"It will shoot again now?" she said, her voice unsteady.

He took the gun. "Yes. But first I will remove the cartridges so you can hold the weapon safely and examine it." He did so and handed it back to her.

"Look at it. Feel it. It is only a tool, and nothing more. A dangerous tool, to be sure, but made by men, skilled artisans, not sorcerers. Can any artisans you know make such a weapon?"

She gazed at the gun with awe. "No. No artisans I have ever seen possess such skill or knowledge."

"Now perhaps you can accept the other things I've told you," Hunter said. "I know it all sounds unbelievable, but nevertheless, it's all true. I am a soldier from that future time. The man you killed was also from that time. He was an evil and misguided man, insane. All of this will be very hard for you to understand and the story will take a long time to tell. I have much to tell you, about myself and the life I lead, about the mastery of time. You have much to learn."

"Why?" She had a confused expression on her face. "I try to understand all this, yet it eludes me. I only know that the things I've seen, the things of which you told me, seem like the fragments of some dream. How can they be real? And yet, how can I doubt my own senses, unless I have gone mad?"

"You will understand, in time," said Hunter.

She shook her head.

"Look," said Hunter, "sit down. I know this must be hard for you to deal with. You're doing very well, under the circumstances. You're quite a woman. That, in itself, was a surprise." He grinned. "Imagine how I felt when you fainted and I put you to bed and started to undress you. I first thought you were wounded and I meant to treat you. There was no hair on your chest, but young boys are often hairless and you appeared to be a pretty young man, not yet old enough to grow a beard. But then I discovered otherwise."

"I see," said Andre, tensing.

Hunter chuckled. "No, I did not take license with your body. My word of honor."

"Why do you offer to teach me, then? You think to make me your concubine? I will not-"

"Peace," said Hunter, holding up his hand. "My intentions toward you are strictly honorable. I hope to make you my friend. But first, I intend to save your life."

"And is my life endangered?"

"I'm afraid so," Hunter said. "You see, I am not alone here. In this time, there are others who came from the future to defeat Irving-the 'wizard' whom you killed. They must now take steps to erase all traces of their presence here. The fact that they were here, that they can master time, that is secret knowledge. Irving meant to take the place of Coeur de Lion and to set into motion events that would affect the time from which we came. That had to be prevented."

"Did I not kill him?"

"Yes, you certainly did. And later, I'll explain to you just how it must have happened. Yet now, another Richard must arrive. A Richard who will act as we know the real Richard will have acted, because we know all the events of his life. It is our history. And we must make certain that our history remains unchanged."

She sighed and shook her head again. "Once more, you mystify me. How can I ever hope to understand all this?"

"You will," said Hunter. "Only now, you must understand that you know things you were never meant to know. You have seen things you were never meant to see. You are not alone in this, but many of the others who have been affected by our presence here are either dead or ways can be found to keep their knowledge from being a threat. You, on the other hand, have seen far more than anyone else. You have seen one Richard die and now you will see another Richard return. You possess a suit of armor such as no armorer of this day can make. Perhaps all this is insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but the soldiers from my time can't be sure of that."

"They will try to kill me?"

"Perhaps. That would be the simplest way. Or they may capture you and take away your memory."

"They can do this?"

"Easily."

"And I would forget everything? I would forget my part in this, I would forget the things that you have shown me, even though I hardly understand them all? I would forget Marcel-"

She shut her eyes.

"No. No, it must not be."

"It doesn't have to be," said Hunter.

"Why do you take my part in this? Are you not one of them?"

"I was one of them," said Hunter. "Now, I live life on my own terms. As for why I want to help you, well, there are many reasons and none. You interest me. I like you. I admire your spirit and determination. In a way, we are alike. You could not live by the rules of your society, so you made your own rules. You were born before your time and I was born too late for mine. We're kindred spirits, you and I. Thanks to you, a threat to my existence has been removed and I now have Irving's chronoplate-his apparatus for traveling from one time or place to another. I propose to take you with me."

"As your woman."

"As your own woman. The time from which I come does not hold women to be inferior to men. And you are the superior of most. In exchange for your companionship, on your own terms, I can offer you the world and almost all of time. I can show you these things I've spoken of. I can teach you how to understand them. I can offer you experiences that would defy your wildest dreams."

"I would like to see these things you spoke of," Andre said. "And I would like to see a world in which I did not have to act the part of a man to live life on my terms. You may be a devil tempting me into damnation for all I know, but this world in which I now reside has lost its sweetness. Yet, I cannot go. Not while Bois-Guilbert lives. If it costs me my life, I will bring him to justice before God for the murder of my brother."

"That's easily enough accomplished," Hunter said. "Take my gun and shoot the bastard.''

"No. With such an awesome weapon, his death would be too swift and I could take no pleasure in it. He dies by my sword, gazing at my face."

"Well, I won't try to talk you out of it," said Hunter. "Revenge is something I can understand. However, do you see that your being abroad now constitutes a risk, and that if you remain here after you have avenged your brother, they will surely find you? I assure you, you would be defenseless against them."

"Once I have avenged Marcel, if you are still willling, I will seek you out and gratefully accept your offer of escape, since I wish to survive and I am most curious to learn of these strange and wonderful things you speak of. Perhaps it will prove the end of me, but I have never been one to turn back from a challenge. I will go with you, but we go as comrades in arms and nothing more, else I do not go."

"Understood."

"Then I must leave you now to seek out Bois-Guilbert."

"If you will allow me-"

"This is a thing which I must do myself," she said.

"And so you shall. But there is no reason not to take precautions. There is still time in which we can be safe here. Let me seek out Bois-Guilbert. I have greater mobility than you and can do so quickly. Then, once I've found him, I'll take you to him. Past that, I promise not to interfere. Is it agreed?"

"Agreed."